Umesh, who lost his two children, wife and brother in the Ashok Vihar building collapse in north-west Delhi, claimed on Thursday that he had pointed out the cracks in the building to Roshanlal, one of the accused, but he had ignored it.
The police said that during initial investigation it was found that Roshanlal, father of Sachin who works as an Assistant Engineer with the Public Works Department, had visited the building a few days ago to collect rent from Umesh. When Umesh reported the cracks in the building to him, he ignored and left the house after collecting rent.
On Wednesday, owner Dharmender, his business partner Sachin and Roshanlal, who had rented out the building in Ashok Vihar were booked under IPC Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder).
Several raids
“We have raided several premises in Delhi and Ghaziabad to nab the accused. Police teams are working in the case, the accused who are absconding will be arrested soon. The bodies was handed over to the family members after post-mortem,” said DCP (North-West) Aslam Khan. However, the police wrote to the North civic body and district administration regarding several unsafe structures in the area and requested immediate survey to identify such structures.
Building vacated
A building adjacent to the building that collapsed on Wednesday morning was reportedly tilted and was evacuated, said a local. “We found the structure unsafe and vacated it. We are waiting for a team of engineers to visit the building before we get in,” said Kusum Sharma, a resident.
Meanwhile, a local identified as Vijay Sonker, has approached to police with a complaint that he had submitted to the office of the North body regarding unsafe buildings in the area. Sonker has raised the issue of unauthorised construction in Sawan Park. He had identified several buildings in the locality that are in a dilapidated state and could cause harm to lives of other residents. The complaint was submitted to the civic body on August 1.
“We keep sending complaints to the North civic body but no action has been taken so far. The officials never take the complaint seriously. This resulted in a building collapse that took the lives of seven innocent people,” said Ashok Singh, another local resident.