Noida techie’s death: Builder arrested

The Noida Police on Tuesday arrested the director of a real estate group in connection with the death of a 27-year-old software engineer, whose car had plunged into a water-filled pit at a construction site in Noida’s Sector 150. “Abhay Kumar, director of MZ Wiztown Planners and one of the accused in the case, has been arrested from Sector 150,” Additional Commissioner of Police (Greater Noida) Hemant Upadhyay said. The police are looking for the other owner, Manish Kumar.

 The arrest came on a day when a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by the Additional Director General (ADG), Meerut Zone, Bhanu Bhaskar visited the accident site to examine the circumstances leading to the incident. The police had filed an FIR against two real estate developers — MZ Wiztown Planners and Lotus Greens — on a complaint by the victim’s father, Raj Kumar Mehta, who alleged negligence by local authorities and sought accountability. While Kumar of Wiztown Planners has been arrested, there was no official update as of Tuesday afternoon from the police on action against the other accused firm.

 Beginning its probe, the Special Investigation Team headed by Additional Director General (ADG), Meerut Zone, Bhanu Bhaskar, visited the accident site on Tuesday and held meetings with officials at the Noida Authority to examine the circumstances leading to the incident. The three-member SIT comprises ADG Bhanu Bhaskar, Meerut Divisional Commissioner Bhanu Chandra Goswami and Public Works Department Chief Engineer Ajay Verma, and it has been asked to submit its report within five days.

 “We have been given five days to examine all aspects and provide an answer within that time frame, determining whose fault it was or what more we could have done to prevent this accident,” Bhaskar told reporters after the meeting. “We need to examine the civic authority, police and emergency authority and will give our opinion within five days. After follow-up meetings, we will submit our opinion to the government,” he added, noting that the SIT would also speak to the victim’s father.

 Noida District Magistrate Medha Roopam, who accompanied the SIT, evaded mediapersons as they attempted to ask her questions. Pradeep Chaubey, CFO of Gautam Buddha Nagar, said, “The location of the car has been traced at about 3 pm, and efforts are on to pull it out.”

Yuvraj Mehta was killed in the early hours of Saturday after his car skidded in dense fog, broke a drain boundary and fell into a deep, waterlogged pit, dug for the basement of an under-construction commercial complex near a drain.The 20-foot-deep pit had been dug in Noida’s Sector 150 for the construction of the basement area of a mall in 2021, but had been filled with water since the year after that. After Mehta’s death, a First Information Report (FIR) was filed against Wiztown Planners and Lotus Greens based on a complaint by his father. Lotus Greens had later claimed that they had sold the project in 2019-2020 to Wishtown Planners and the Grihapravesh Group with the approval of the Noida Authority.

The software engineer, who did not know how to swim, managed to stay alive for about 90 minutes. His father reached the spot first after getting a call from him and was then joined by teams from the police, fire brigade and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF). Because of the thick fog, Mehta could not be located and he drowned. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had on Monday evening ordered the constitution of the three-member SIT to probe the case, amid public outrage and allegations of negligence by officials and developers. The state government also removed senior IAS officer Lokesh M as the Noida Authority CEO on Monday, putting him on “waitlist”. The FIR has been lodged under Sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 106 (causing death by negligence) and 125 (act endangering life or personal safety of others) and other relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the police said. Investigations are continuing, the police added.

 The incident has sparked allegations of negligence, inadequate safety arrangements and delays in rescue efforts, with the victim’s father saying he had reached the spot along with police and other rescue personnel were also there but could not save him. “If expert divers could have gone in, then maybe my son would have been saved. Yuvraj kept crying for help as the car drowned,” he told reporters.