Road repair crew accidentally buries a drunken man in India

NEW DELHI — Police say road construction workers killed a man when they accidentally buried him in a pit while repairing a road in central India.

Constable Dhruvsingh Thakur said Tuesday that the crew failed to notice that a drunken man had fallen into a crater on the side of the road in Madhya Pradesh state. Working in the evening, the workers dumped gravel and an asphalt mixture into the pit, burying the man, before using a large roller to smoothen the road.

Thakur says the death was discovered when villagers noticed part of the man’s hand was visible in the road and police dug out his body on Monday.

The workers have been charged with homicide. Poorly maintained roads with large potholes are common in India.