Delhi coaching centre deaths: Owner, coordinator arrested; officials say norms violated

NEW DELHI : The owner and the coordinator of a coaching centre where three civil services aspirants died due to rain-induced flooding in the basement were arrested on Sunday even as protests erupted in the area over the incident. According to officials, the coaching institute had permission to use the basement as a store room, but it was being used as library which is a violation of the rules. Delhi Mayor Shelly Oberoi directed MCD commissioner to take strict action against institutes that are using basements for commercial purposes in violation of building bye-laws and against any officers responsible for the incident.

Delhi Fire Service chief Atul Garg said the institute was functioning in violation of the norms of the fire department. "The building has fire NOC, but in the NOC they had shown the basement will be used as store room. The management of the institute was using the same room as a classroom or library which is a violation of the NOC," Garg told PTI.

The arrested accused have been identified as Abhishek Gupta, owner of the coaching centre, and Deshpal Singh, the centre's coordinator. Protests erupted at Rajinder Nagar over the incident with former DCW chief Swati Maliwal also visiting the incident site. Delhi Congress chief Devender Yadav also visited the site. Searches by agencies at the coaching centre continued past the midnight and ended after seven hours. Shreya Yadav of Ambedkar Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, Tanya Soni from Telangana and Navin Dalwin from Ernakulam in Kerala were identified to have died in the incident, police said.

Dharmender Yadav, uncle of Shreya Yadav, said he learnt about the incident through news channels. "I tried to call her but her phone was switched off. Even the coaching centre's number was not reachable. I left from Ghaziabad and reached the place where she stayed but her room was locked. "I went to the coaching centre where I met the DCP and he asked me to go to RML Hospital. At the hospital, I was not allowed to see her body. However, they confirmed receiving her body," he said. At the RML Hospital, there was anger among the relatives of the victims, who claimed they were not being allowed to see the bodies even though they have been waiting since morning.

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Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi condoled the death of three IAS aspirants and said common people are paying the price for unsafe construction, poor town planning and irresponsibility of institutions at every level. Congress leader Pawan Khera termed the incident "a man-made disaster". "The students had come from far-off places to study in Delhi. But what is the system of filtering out illegal structures from legal structures? Is the MCD looking into it? What about the drainage system? All these questions plague these controversies around these deaths," Khera said. "Last week, a student died after touching a live wire. Is this how we should treat students coming to Delhi? Action has to be taken, accountability has to be fixed, and Delhi cannot be seen as such an insensitive city," he said.

Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva called the incident a "murder" and said students who came to build their future in Delhi have "become victims of corruption". "Nobody is answering how the library was established in the basement. There was an incident in Mukherjee Nagar, the Delhi govt had launched the investigation. What has happened to the investigation? Delhi Minister (Atishi) has still not reached the spot. The locals were asking for cleaning of drainage. Whoever is responsible should be punished. What is the fault of students?" he said. Following the incident, Mayor Oberoi directed the MCD commissioner to take strict action against all such coaching centres across Delhi which are under the jurisdiction of MCD and running commercial activities in basements. This, she said, are in violation of building bye-laws and are not as per norms. She also called for an inquiry to identify if any MCD officers were responsible in the incident.