Road repair crew accidentally buries man

Road construction workers in central India killed a man when they accidentally buried him in a pit while repairing a road, police say.

The road repair crew failed to notice a drunken man had fallen into a crater on the side of the road in Sleemanabad, a village 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 on the road, Constable Dhruvsingh Thakur said.

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

The man, in his mid-30s, had gone to a village fair and later stopped at a liquor store. He was heading home when he fell into the pit and lost consciousness, his neighbours told Thakur.

Two workers of the road repair crew were arrested and have been charged with homicide.