Girl crushed by faulty elevator

WARANGAL: Carelessness on the part of apartment staff led to the death of an eightyear- old girl who used an elevator which was out of order.Harshitha, daughter of a district magistrate, was crushed to death between the elevator doors in the building where she lived on Wednesday night.Though the lift had not been functioning properly for over 10 days, the apartment committee had not thought to put up a signboard warning potential users.The incident occurred at Siva Nivas Apartments in Venkateswara Nagar behind the district court where Harshitha’s mother Mekala Aruna works as the fifth additional magistrate.Her father Prabhakar is a supervisor in the health department in their native Luxettipet in Adilabad district and she also has a younger sister Akshaya (7).The family lives on the second floor of the building.The two girls had gone for tuition on the third floor and while returning home, Harshitha decided to use the lift while Akshaya took the stairs.Harshitha had just opened the door of the lift and peeked inside when the doors suddenly closed, trapping her head and started rising.Though Harshitha yelled and alerted the other residents, she was dead by the time the lift could be stopped.Fire department officials and the police rushed to the place and broke open the doors to retrieve her body.Subedari inspector R Ranadhir said a case will be registered against the management committee of the apartment complex.