After arresting two people, the Delhi Police has registered an FIR and formed multiple teams to probe the Rau’s coaching centre flooding incident which claimed the lives of three IAS aspirants, who had already cleared their prelims exam and were preparing in the library of the coaching institute for the Mains exams of UPSC.
According to the police on Sunday, they have arrested owner Abhishek Gupta and coordinator Deshpal Singh of the Rau’s IAS Study Circle and booked them for culpable homicide and under other charges.
“Multiple teams have been formed to investigate the entire incident. We have asked the Delhi Fire Services to provide us report about the building and the basement which was being used as a library but mentioned as ‘store room’,” a senior police officer said.
The officer said the basement was eight-feet below the ground level and more than 18 students were present in it on Saturday evening when it got flooded after heavy rain. According to sources in the police department, the gate of the basement was closed, but due to high pressure of rain water, it got damaged and water gushed in.
“We are checking CCTV footage from the area to ascertain the sequence of the events. After scanning the CCTV footage, we will identify the people who were standing close to the institute during the time of incident and will record their statements,” said the officer.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) M Harsha Vardhan said, “We have registered an FIR at Rajinder Nagar Police Station under sections 105 (culpable homicide), 106(1) (death of any person by doing any rash or negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide), 115(2) (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 290 (negligent conduct with respect to pulling down, repairing or constructing buildings) and 35 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and launched an investigation.”
“This FIR is against the coaching centre, management of the building, those who manage the drainage system and the people whose role will come up in the investigation,” he added. The bodies of two female students and a male student were retrieved from the basement during the rescue operation. The deceased were identified as 25 year old Shreya Yadav of Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, 25 year old Tanya Soni from Telangana and 24 year old Nevin Delvin from Ernakulam in Kerala, police said. According to reports, Nevin was also a research scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi.
Students were also protesting against the death of the aspirants while sloganeering ‘We want justice’. While they at first staged their demonstration near the Rau coaching centre, later the protestors went to Karol Bagh metro station that were later removed by the police authorities. DCP stated that since yesterday evening the road in Old Rajender Nagar was blocked by students who are protesting the incident of flooding of basement. “We understand their sentiments and thus are engaging with them constructively to remain peaceful in their protest,” he said.
A senior police officer said that it was important to remove the students who started protesting near the metro station in noon and stated, “Today around 2:30pm, some students blocked both carriageways of Pusa Road near Karol Bagh Metro Station, which is an arterial road with many hospitals in the vicinity. They were repeatedly requested to not block the main road by DCP Central as well as DM Central. Since they refused to clear the main road even after an hour, they were removed from there, considering the massive public inconvenience and nearby hospitals.”
Teams from the local police, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and Delhi Fire Service (DFS) were part of the rescue operation, which went on till the early morning of Sunday and was ended after seven hours of rescue efforts.
According to the DFS, a call about waterlogging was received from Rau’s IAS Study Circle at around 7 pm on Saturday and that that there was a possibility that some people were trapped. A fire department official said that a total of five tenders were rushed to the site. The basement was full of water when they arrived.
Preliminary investigation suggests that the basement housed a library where several students were present. Water suddenly started flooding the basement. Ropes were used to evacuate the trapped students, officials said. The furniture in the coaching centre started floating when it was flooded and this created obstruction in the rescue operation, a police officer said.