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Couple killed in Delhi after roof of house collapses, narrow escape for 10-year-old son
The house, built over 75 square metre area, had four rooms, each occupied by a different family as tenants, said officials and a resident.
A couple in their 30s was killed after the roof of their room in a dilapidated single-storey house collapsed on Sunday, officials from the fire and police departments said on Monday. The woman’s 10-year-old son, who was hardly ten steps away, survived because he was in a neighbour’s room.
The victims were identified as a 32-year-old confectioner, Tinku, and 30-year-old Urmila.
Fire authorities said a call about the incident in Gali Number-2 in Jai Prakash Nagar, Usmanpur, was received at 10:31pm on Sunday. The couple was rescued by police officials and locals. They were then rushed to the Jag Pravesh Chandra hospital, where they were declared brought dead.
A case under sections 106 (death by negligence) and 290 (negligent conduct with respect to pulling down, repairing or constructing buildings) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) was registered against the building owner Virender Kumar, said deputy commissioner of police (northeast) Rahul Alwal. He was later arrested and released on bail.
Kumar told HT the house had been constructed around a decade ago and had all the necessary approvals. He said he had been planning to demolish and rebuild the house from scratch and had repeatedly asked the tenants to vacate it.
The house, built over 75 square metre area, had four rooms, each occupied by a different family as tenants, said officials and a resident.
“Only ground floor was constructed. While the back side room collapsed, the remaining portion has been vacated. The demolition work of remaining unsafe portion is also in progress,” said an MCD official, requesting anonymity.
According to locals, Tinku and Urmila, who were married around three months ago, lived in the room at the end of the house with Urmila’s son from her first marriage.
Ajay Kumar, a 30-year-old vegetable vendor who also lived in a rented room in the same house, said his two children also narrowly escaped the accident.
“My wife and Urmila had initially planned to go bangle shopping at the weekly Sunday market, but Urmila later changed her mind. Whenever my wife and I went out, we usually left our children with Urmila. This time, however, we left our two children in our own room. Urmila’s son had come over to play with them, so he was also in our room when the incident occurred,” Kumar said.
He added that the landlord had been persistently asking them to vacate the property, but the tenants had requested for some time because it was difficult to find affordable accommodation on such short notice.
Kumar confirmed this, “I wanted to reconstruct the house and had asked the tenants to move out. However, they requested that they be allowed to stay until Rakshabandhan. I thought they were all daily-wage labourers, so I let them remain through the festive season so they could continue earning. After the incident, I realised it would have been better to have the house vacated immediately rather than wait any longer.”
According to Jai Prakash Nagar residents welfare association (RWA) president Balbir Singh Parmar, “Other tenants had said that rainwater had accumulated on the terrace, which may have weakened the roof. Some neighbours and I pulled the couple out of the debris and later informed the local beat constable about the incident.”
The arrival of the police to the spot and thereby the ambulance, he said, was delayed because the only two entry points to the narrow internal lane were blocked by the weekly Sunday market crowd.
On Monday, the main entrance to the house was locked with neighbours claiming that the tenants of the four other rooms had vacated the house following directions from the police and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) officials over safety concerns.
Police are attempting to establish whether the building had previously been declared a dangerous structure, unsafe for human habitation, by the civic agency, an officer aware of the matter told HT.
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