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Delhi flooding deaths: MCD terminates junior engineer, suspends another; police may question MCD officials
NEW DELHI: A junior engineer has been terminated and an assistant engineer suspended in connection with the death of three IAS aspirants due flooding of a basement in the building of a coaching centre, MCD Commissioner Ashwani Kumar said on Monday.
The action has been taken against the officials of the maintenance department for the Karol Bagh Zone.
The termination and suspension orders will be released soon, sources said.
Three civil services aspirants, two females and a male, were killed after the basement of Rau's IAS Study Circle in Central Delhi's Old Rajinder Nagar area was flooded following heavy rains on Saturday.
Looking into the deaths, the Delhi Police may also question MCD officials about the desilting of drains and the clearance certificate issued by them to the Rau's IAS Study Circle, sources said.
They said the police are going to write to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) over these issues, and if required in the course of the probe, may call the officers concerned for questioning.
The MCD is responsible for the desilting of storm water drains.
It has been alleged the drainage system near the coaching centre in the Old Rajinder Nagar area was not working properly due to which a large quantity of rainwater got accumulated at the road, and gushed into the basement.
A Delhi Police official said they will also seek the details from the MCD about the cleaning of the drains and the number of inspections they carried out in the area.
The police will also ask the MCD to furnish the occupancy certificate where the basement owner allegedly said it would be used for parking and household storage, sources said.
The owner was using the basement for a library and also set up a biometric system to regulate access, police said.
Delhi Police has registered an FIR and formed multiple teams to probe the incident.
The owner and the coordinator of the Rau's IAS Study Circle has been arrested and booked for culpable homicide and other charges.
On Sunday, both the accused were sent to Tihar for 14 days of judicial custody.
The sources said the police found during the probe that an aspirant filed a complaint with the Delhi government a month back stating that the basement was running illegally however, nothing to avail, the source said.
A senior officer said that a few more people are on the radar as they are suspected to be responsible for the incident.
They may be arrested or summoned soon, he said.
The FIR stated that a huge quantity of rainwater accumulated on the road as the drainage system was not working properly and it entered the four-storey building's basement which housed the library.
With no water outlet provision in the basement, it took more than five hours for the authorities to pump out the water during the rescue operation.
Body of male student handed over to the family
The body of Nevin Delvin, who was among the three civil services aspirants who were killed after the basement of a coaching centre here was flooded following heavy rain, was handed over to his family on Monday after post-mortem.
The bodies of the other two students were handed over to their families on Sunday.
Devlin's body was handed over to his maternal uncle Linu Raj at RML hospital and then taken for embalming.
"We will take an evening flight and take his body to Trivandrum, his native place for the funeral. We learnt about the incident on Sunday morning," his uncle said.
Devlin was pursuing PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
He and the other two students died after a library housed in the basement of Rau's IAS centre was inundated on Saturday night reportedly leading to the failure of the single biometric entry and exit point.