One held over Jaitpur wall collapse deaths in Delhi

A case under sections 106 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 125 (causing death by negligence) and 290 (public nuisance) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has been registered

NEW DELHI

Rescue operations at the site on August 9. (HT)

A day after a wall collapse in Jaitpur led to the death of seven people on Saturday, police arrested a tenant who had allegedly accommodated families on the plot.

Deputy commissioner of police (south east) Hemant Tiwari said that the accused tenant, identified as Mohammed Kurshid, 49, from West Bengal’s Nadia district, was arrested on Saturday. “He had allowed multiple families to stay on the plot and store scrap there,” he said.

The landowner, Rajbir Bhati, a resident of the same locality, is absconding. “Efforts are being made to trace and arrest him,” the officer said.

A case under sections 106 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 125 (causing death by negligence) and 290 (public nuisance) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has been registered at Jaitpur police station.

Police said that post-mortem examinations of all seven victims were conducted on Saturday and the bodies were handed over to relatives. The deceased died during treatment, while one injured person was still undergoing treatment at the Safdarjung Hospital.

The collapse, triggered by overnight rainfall that weakened the structure, reduced to debris a cluster of six to seven jhuggis in Hari Nagar. Police said the wall of a shrine, built six to seven months ago by the landowner in memory of his parents, fell at 9.13am, crushing residents as they cooked, played, or prepared for work.

Among the dead were ragpicker Muttus Ali, whose 11-year-old daughter Moina survived; four members of one family, including two girls aged seven; and Safiqul and his wife Doli, who had been married seven years and were trying for a baby.