Kumaraswamy left his house in Vinobha Nagar around 7.30 on Sunday morning, 2 August, and told his wife Lalitha he was off for a blood test at the Rotary Blood Bank. Afterward, he said, he would stop at the Dattatreya Swamy Temple. He was 80, a retired engineer. By nine o’clock a family friend was at the door with news that he had collapsed near the temple lift.
According to the police account carried by the Times of India, he pressed the call button, assumed the car had come, and pulled open the manual outer door. It had not come. The car was on a floor above, and as it came down it struck him and pinned him in the shaft.
Rescue and the hospital
Karnataka State Fire and Emergency Services crews reached the temple in Vinayaka Nagar quickly and pulled him out. They took him to McGann District Hospital. Doctors there confirmed he had died of his injuries. Lalitha, who is 75, arrived at the hospital to hear it.
She then filed a written complaint at the Jayanagar Police Station, and officers registered an Unnatural Death Report, the routine entry for a death that is not obviously natural. The body went for post-mortem and was then released to the family for final rites.
What police are checking
Officers inspected the site. The central question is narrow: did the lock on the manual door fail, or did a safety lapse let that door open with no car behind it? Shivamogga SP B Nikhil confirmed the investigation was continuing when he spoke to the Times of India.
News Karnataka reported that investigators are expected to go through the lift’s maintenance records and may question temple management and the people who service it. They want to know whether the lift met required safety standards and whether anyone had flagged technical trouble earlier.
The death has unsettled devotees and residents. Lifts in religious buildings see heavy daily use, much of it by older worshippers, and the case has revived questions about how often such machines are inspected and maintained.
Sources
- Karnataka Engineer Death: 80-year-old retired engineer dies after getting trapped under elevator at Karnataka temple | Mysuru News – The Times of India
- Retired engineer dies in Shivamogga temple lift accident | Dailyhunt
