New Delhi, Sep. 26 (IANS): Four children and two women were killed when a four-storey building collapsed here on Wednesday, police said, adding that six others were rescued from the rubble. Three of the injured were said to be critical.
Police said the old building in a JJ Cluster in north Delhi’s Sawan Park area collapsed around 9.30 a.m., following which area residents informed police that some tenants living in the structure were trapped under the rubble.
Teams of the National Disaster Response Force, police and Delhi Fire Services along with area residents undertook rescue work for over five hours and took the help of two cranes to pull out the trapped people.
“The building was built about two decades ago was in bad condition,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Aslam Khan said.
According to Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital, the six injured admitted there were Kamla Shankar, 18, Manju, 22, Laxman, 26, Vijay, 30, Nisha, 35, and Raj Bahadur, 35. The condition of three of them is said to be critical.
Delhi Police said that building owner Dharmender and his partner Sachin have been booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
“They absconded along with their family members after the collapse. A manhunt is on to nab them,” the DCP said.
The officer said that in August 2017 area resident Sanjeev Gupta had lodged a complaint on the online portal of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) about the building posing a danger to the public. “The team of area MCD officers had inspected the house just 20 days back,” the officer claimed.According to the official, about 23 tenants from four families stayed on different floors of the building, constructed on a 25 square yard plot.
The area residents accused the NDMC of negligence and said its officer visited the building but did not seal it because of corruption.
