Deployment of Rapid Action Force outside the building where incident took place | Photo: Raghav Aggarwal
4 min read Last Updated : Jul 28 2024 | 6:56 PM IST
Delhi’s Karol Bagh metro station is no stranger to hustle and bustle. Tens of thousands of students visit it every day to attend nearby coaching classes, hoping to crack the coveted Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) Civil Services Exam.
But on Sunday afternoon, it was unusually loud below the station.
Loud cries of “We want justice!” roared as hundreds of UPSC aspirants sat in protest on and around Pusa Road, demanding a fair probe into the tragic death of three of their own—two females and a male—who were trapped inside the library running in the basement of Rau’s IAS Study Circle in Old Rajendra Nagar amid sudden waterlogging on Saturday evening.
“We come here with such big dreams of changing the country,” said Pankaj Kumar, a 28-year-old aspirant who was part of the protest. “Imagine dying like this, and that too in the capital.”
Reports suggest that the only biometric entry and exit point in the basement got blocked due to a power failure in the building, and students got trapped inside. They also state that the flooding happened after a nearby drain broke.
While the police are yet to confirm the real reason for the flooding, objections have been raised regarding the violations of the building in question.
A recent fire safety certificate issued by the fire department and seen by Business Standard showed that the basement was for parking and storage. The basement, on the other hand, was being used as a library.
Moreover, according to the rules in the capital, if a basement is being used for commercial purposes, there should be a sufficient number of entry and exit gates. However, in Rau’s library, there was only one entry/exit.
The owner and coordinator of the coaching institute have been arrested.
The National Disaster Response Force ran a seven-hour-long operation and recovered three dead bodies. They were later identified as Telangana’s Tania Soni and Uttar Pradesh’s Shreya Yadav, both 25 years old, and Navin Delvin, a 28-year-old from Kerala.
While Soni started her coaching last year, Yadav came to Delhi only in April this year. Both of them were the eldest children in their homes. Delvin had completed his MPhil and PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University recently.
Another aspirant, who studied at Rau’s, said that the primary responsibility lies with the institute.
“They charge such high fees and offer us this safety,” he said, wishing not to be named. “Our lives have become a subject of mockery.”
On Sunday afternoon, the police used force to clear the road where students sat in protest and detained three students.
M Harshvardhan, Deputy Commissioner of Police Central, later told the media that the police used “mild force” to “disperse” the protesters.
“We don’t want to register any case against them or do any harm to them because it might affect their career,” he said.
“We requested them to finish their protest, but after they jammed Pusa Road, we used mild force to disperse them,” he added.
Protests amid heavy Police deployment at Karol Bagh metro station | Photo: Raghav Aggarwal
Sujata Sharma, a 24-year-old aspirant from Lucknow, said it was a case of negligence.
“Nobody learned anything from the Mukherjee Nagar incident. It is pure negligence on the part of the authorities,” she said.
Last year, a fire at a coaching centre in Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar resulted in injuries to over 60 students. In April this year, the Delhi High Court constituted a team of lawyers, headed by advocate Gautam Narayan, to inspect coaching centres operating in Mukherjee Nagar.
“We will not give up this time,” said Kumar.
The Saturday incident has also started a political slugfest, with the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders blaming it on Aam Aadmi Party’s negligence towards desilting the drains.
“Delhi government’s criminal negligence is responsible for this mishap. Jal Board Minister Atishi and local MLA Durgesh Pathak should take responsibility and resign,” said Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva on Saturday.
“For the past week, locals were urging AAP MLA Durgesh Pathak to get the drain here cleaned. However, Durgesh Pathak didn’t listen to them. Arvind Kejriwal, Durgesh Pathak and the AAP government are entirely responsible for this incident,” added New Delhi Member of Parliament Bansuri Swaraj.
Delhi Lt Governor VK Saxena on Sunday said the incident was indicative of the “larger malaise of misgovernance that Delhi has been subjected to during the last decade or so.”
Delhi Mayor Shelly Oberoi directed Ashwani Kumar, Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, to take strict action against commercial activities run in the basements and ascertain if an MCD official is responsible for the incident.
Later, AAP’s Gopal Rai said that the Delhi government has given instructions to speed up the investigation.
First Published: Jul 28 2024 | 6:56 PM IST
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