In the first major monsoon-related mishap in Maharashtra this year, at least 15 persons — most of whom labourers and their family members from West Bengal and Bihar — were killed when a compound wall of a posh residential housing collapsed on their hutments near Talab Masjib Pune’s Kondhwa locality in the small hours of Saturday.

The victims — including four children — were sleeping in their make-shift hutments when a 60 feet protection wall of Alcon Stylus residential building crashing down on their hutments at around 1.45 am. Despite the complaints by local residents made to the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and the builders concerned that the protection wall collapse away any time, both the civic authorities and builders had not done anything. As the wall gave way and came down the hutments, the labourers and their family members were buried under the debris. 

Following the mishap, at least 10 cars vehicles parked near the protection wall slid down along with a portion of the earth crushed the hutments below.

Teams of National Disaster Response Force and Pune fire brigade rushed to spot shortly after the collapse. After recovering the bodies of those killed, they  managed to rescue just three alive, including two minors. Most of them were labourers and their family members.

Mourning the death of those killed in the Pune collapse, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis tweeted: "Extremely saddened to know about loss of lives in the Kondhwa, Pune wall collapse incident. My deepest condolences to the families and prying for speedy recovery of the injured. Directed Pune Collector to conduct an in-depth enquiry”.

Talking to media persons later in the day, Fadnavis said that accountability would be fixed for the incident and action would be taken against those who were found guilty. “It is a serious incident. My ministerial colleagues have rushed to the sport. Given the manner in which labourers were killed, we will have to fix responsibility for the incident. We will take stern action against those found guilty. A committee has been appointed to ascertain if the land given for the construction was good and the quality of construction were good enough or not. The next of kin of those killed are being a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each. The district administration is making arrangement to fly their bodies to their native places,” Fadnavis said.

Those killed were identified as Alok Sharma ( 28), Mohan Sharma (19), Ravi Sharma (19), Laxmikant Sahani (33), Sunil Singh (35), Wovi Das ( 2), Sonali Das (6), Bhima Das (38), Sangeeta Devi (26), Ajit Kumar Sharma (7), Rekalkumar Sharma (5), Neeva Devi (30), Deepak Ranhan and Avinash Singh

The local police have, meanwhile, registered an offence of negligence and culpable homicide not amounting to murder against eight persons belonging Alcon Stylus and Kanchan builders, including their owners, engineers and contractors for the tragedy, charging them with negligence and culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

The arrested builders officials comprised: Jagdishprasad Agrawal, Sachin Jagdish Prasad Agrawal, Rajesh Jagdishprasad Agrawal, Vivek Sunil Agrawal, Vipul Sunil Agrawal, Pankaj Vora, Suresh Shah, Rashmikant Gandhi.

Earlier, attributing the mishap to the heavy rains that battered Pune during the past 24 hours, Pune District Collector Naval Kishore Ram said: “Negligence of the construction company has come to our notice. The death of 15 people is not a small matter. We will initiate action against those responsible for the mishap.

Those killed were labourers from Bihar and West Bengal. The state government would provide assistance to the kin of the affected people”.

Pune police commissioner K Venkatesham said that the police teams team were investigating the reasons behind the collapse. “Firm action will be taken against those responsible. We will check whether proper permissions were taken and safety measures were followed," Venkaesham said.

Meanwhile, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) slapped a Stop Work order to an adjoining building of the same company where construction activities were underway.

Pune’s Guardian Minister Chandrakant Patil who also rushed to the mishap site on Friday afternoon, said that no one responsible for the mishap would be spared. “ I have asked the inquire committee to submit its report within a week,” Patil said.

Maharashtra Congress President Ashok Chavan demanded stringent against all those found guilty of their involvement in the circumstances leading to the collapse and  also take measures to provide relief to the families of the victims and survivors.

Saturday’s was one of the several collapses that have taken place in Pune and surrounding areas in recent years.  On July 29, 2016, nine labourers were killed and five others were injured, two of whom seriously, when a slab of an under-construction building collapsed at Balewadi in Pune on Friday morning.

As many as 151 people were killed in a major landslide that rocked Malin village near the temple town of Bhimashankar in Ambegaon taluka of Pune district on July 30, 2014.

Earlier in December 2012, 13 workers were killed when the dome of a building collapsed. In September 2012, 11 workers were killed when an illegal building caved in.