A labour contractor, arrested in connection with the collapse of a boys’ paying guest facility in Delhi’s Satya Niketan, revealed on Wednesday that three trucks of debris were moved into the basement for renovation work days before the tragedy.
He also told Delhi Police that a wall, obstructing space for a shop on the ground floor, was removed on the day of the collapse.
What the labour contractor told police
Follow live updates on the Delhi building collapse here . Around three truckloads of debris (malba) were filled into the basement of the PG building during renovation work to level it with the ground floor days before its collapse. “There was one wall which was obstructing the space for a shop on the ground floor.
The labour contractor, Sanoj Kumar (35), a resident of JJ Camp Moti Bagh and a permanent resident of Manikpur village in Bihar’s Banka, was apprehended in Uttar Pradesh’s Kasganj and brought to Delhi, where he was arrested and questioned, according to a senior police official. During the investigation into the collapse, Sanoj told police that he was hired by building owner Mahesh Gupta around 10 days before the incident. Since the incident, a Delhi court sent building owner Hariram, an 81-year-old retired Indian Air Force sergeant, and his 75-year-old wife Urmila to 14 days’ judicial custody.
On the day of the incident, they removed the said wall to create space. The building could not take the load and ultimately collapsed,” the officer said. The revelation comes as the capital is still reeling from the tragic collapse of a five-storey PG building on Sunday afternoon, which killed seven people, including five students and two labourers.
