AAP Rajya Sabha member Swati Maliwal on Sunday met the family members of the deceased at Delhi's RML Hospital. 3 students lost their lives after the basement of a coaching institute in Delhi's Old Rajinder Nagar Coaching Centre was filled with water yesterday.
“I met with the families of two girl students who lost their lives. They are crying and only demanding strict actions against those who are involved in this. It’s shameful that no minister and (Delhi) Mayor have come here yet to meet them,” she said.
"The students are very sad and angry. It has been more than 12 hours, till now neither any minister of Delhi government has come, nor the mayor of MCD, nor any officer. I believe that these deaths are not a disaster, this is a murder, an FIR should be registered against all these big government officials," Maliwal added.
Compensation of Rs 1 crore should be given to all the students who have died, she demanded adding, the minister, mayor should come here immediately and apologize to them.
"Delhi will not run like this. I will raise this issue in Parliament. I will keep all the demands of students in Parliament. The students are saying that 12 days ago they had informed the councillor that the drain system here is bad, so the councillor and all the people above him should answer," she added.
Delhi coaching centre falsely showed basement as store room in documents
The basement of the coaching Institute was functioning illegally as a library, officials said on Sunday. Rao's IAS Study Circle, the coaching institute, had falsely shown that the basement was being used for parking and as a store room, as per the building plan and No Objection Certificate (NOC) of the fire department.
The three-storey coaching centre had its building plan approved by the concerned MCD department in 2021.
"In the building completion certificate of the institute, it is clearly written that it can only be used for parking and storage in the basement. It means that the library was running illegally in the basement," an MCD official said.
MCD commissioner Ashwani Kumar, after taking charge in June, has suspended several officers from the corporation's building department.
Last week, three officers of the department were suspended at the zone where the coaching centre is located. There was immediate reaction from the commissioner on the reason behind the suspension.
The coaching institute made a similar disclosure to the fire department about the basement, thus also violating its norms, according to Delhi Fire Services chief Atul Garg.
Garg said, "The building has fire NOC, but in the NOC they had shown the basement as a store room. The management of the institute was using the same room as a classroom or library which is a violation of the NOC," Garg said.
He further said that there was no option to de-water the basement. Locals complained that there are several other coaching institutions in the area which operate from the basement.
(With agencies inputs)
