Coaching centre deaths: 5 more held, bulldozer action as anger mounts

Delhi Police on Monday said it has arrested five more people, including an SUV owner and four co-owners of the basement of a four-storeyed building where three civil services aspirants died after it was flooded following heavy rains.

The arrest of the SUV driver in particular, however, has triggered a wave of outrage across social media, with netizens questioning why the driver was being punished instead of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) officials, who they say are responsible for the rampant waterlogging in the city whenever it rains.

With the latest arrests, the total number of people arrested in the case so far has risen to seven. The five accused — Tejinder Singh, Parvinder Singh, Harvinder Singh and Sarabjeet Singh, the four co-owners of the basement of the coaching centre at Old Rajinder Nagar, and the driver, Manuj Kathuria — were produced in a Delhi court and sent to judicial custody till 12 August. Their bail pleas will be heard on Tuesday.

In a video that has gone viral on social media, the SUV (sports utility vehicle) is seen driving through the street that was flooded by rainwater on Saturday, causing the water to swell and breach the gates of the three-storey building and inundate the basement. The SUV has been seized.

Additionally, bulldozers began demolishing encroachments as anguish over the deaths echoed across the city, from Parliament to the streets of Old Rajinder Nagar. The ministry of home affairs constituted a committee to inquire into the incident and said it would look into the reasons, fix responsibility, suggest measures and recommend policy changes.

The owner and coordinator of Rau's IAS Study Circle have already been arrested, and booked in culpable homicide and other charges.

Meanwhile, a civil services aspirant from Gwalior has claimed he lodged a complaint about the alleged illegal use of the study circle's basement on a Central government portal a month before the tragedy.

Kishore Singh Kushwaha maintained that had the MCD acted promptly on his complaint, their lives could have been saved. Speaking to the media, Kushwaha, who is taking coaching for UPSC examinations in Gwalior, said he had uploaded his complaint on the government's public grievances (PG) portal on 26 June about classes and libraries being operated from the basements of Rao's IAS Study Circle and other institutes in the nation's capital.

He also claimed he had also sent two reminders — on 15 and 22 July — but no action was taken by officials concerned at the MCD, where the complaint was forwarded.

Basements are only for storage purposes, but classes are held there and they are also used as libraries without permission from authorities, Kushwaha said. "Not just in Delhi's Old Rajinder Nagar area, but the situation is same in the national capital's Mukherjee Nagar as well as in other cities like Gwalior, Kota, Patna, Indore and Jaipur, which are education hubs. Coaching centres run libraries in their basements putting students' lives at risk," Kushwaha maintained.

The buildings are in a dilapidated state and have permission to use their basements only for storage. But to save money and by bribing local civic body officials, their owners obtain permissions to run classes there, he alleged.

Deputy commissioner of police (central) M. Harsha Vardhan said each floor of the building is owned by different persons. "Five more people have been arrested in connection with the flooding case in Rajinder Nagar. This includes the owner of the basement and an individual who drove a vehicle which appears to have damaged the gate of the building," he said.

Investigation has revealed that the co-owners had rented out the basement to the coaching centre in 2021. They had not set up any drainage system in the basement which was functioning as a library. The documents with the MCD showed that the basement was being used as a store room by the coaching centre.

On Monday, police recovered statements of four more people, including students trapped in the flooded basement. Police said statements of a few more people are yet to be recorded.

Officials are also collecting images and videos of both inside and outside the building when water started gushing into the building. CCTV footage from the area is also being scanned.

Delhi Police has written to the MCD seeking the status of de-silting of drains in the area and the clearance certificate issued by them to the Rau's IAS Study Circle. They have also sought details if any complaint was given against the coaching institute to the civic agency or not. And if the complaint was given, what actions were taken by them.