Girl suffered electric shock at Delhi coaching centre day before Rau's IAS tragedy

Shweta, an eyewitness to the incident said the victim suffered from electric shock while trying to open a gate which had a biometric machine installed on it.

A day before the flooding at the basement of Rau's IAS coaching centre in Old Rajinder Nagar, Delhi claimed the lives of three aspirants, a girl suffered electrocution allegedly using a biometric machine to register her attendance at another coaching centre in Delhi. Vani Awasthi is currently undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh after she suffered an electric shock from a machine at a coaching centre after rain.

Doctor said, Awasthi was admitted in the ICU and had developed a phobia due to which her left leg and hand were not functioning. However she is better now and can speak. (ANI)

Shweta, an eyewitness to the incident, told ANI that the rain which happened 1-2 weeks ago caused earthing in the gates on which the biometric machine was installed. She said, Awasthi touched the gate to open it and got an electric shock.

“She was rushed to RML hospital, where she was admitted to the ICU for 1-2 days. When she got a little normal, she was sent to her hometown Bareilly. She was admitted to a hospital there”, Shweta said.

Dr Sudeep Saran from Bareilly said that Awasthi was injured from electric shock a day before the waterlogging incident at Rau's. “Vani was studying at a coaching centre in Delhi which suffered an incident due to flooding. One day before that, when she reached there for her coaching classes and entered through the gate, there was waterlogging where a biometric machine was installed. She pressed her thumb for attendance and as soon as she touched the gate, she was electrocuted as there was a current in the gate. She fell unconscious. She was rushed to Safdarjung Hospital and admitted there. She gained consciousness after a long time,” Dr. Saran told ANI.

He added that initially, her condition was critical when she was brought into the hospital in an ambulance. Awasthi was admitted to the ICU and had developed a phobia due to which her left leg and hand were not functioning. The doctor said that Awasthi is better now with the help of medicines and counselling and can speak normally, however, it needs to be assessed whether the incident had any effect on her aptitude.

Shweta said that the biometric machines were removed by the owner after the incident. A few days later, the institute also shut down the library at the coaching centre which was functioning out of the basement.