Satya Niketan building owner Hariram Bansal, wife in judicial custody, FIR blames ‘illegal’ construction

Five students and two labourers died, while five students were injured in the collapse of the nearly 50-year-old PG building.

Delhi Police on Monday arrested the owner of a five-storey building that housed Delhi University students and crumpled a day earlier, as the toll in the tragedy climbed to seven and questions swirled about the negligence of the municipal authorities and state government.

Hariram Gupta, owner of the Satya Niketan building that collapsed on Sunday and claimed the lives of seven people, being taken to South Campus police station. (PTI)

Hariram Bansal, a 81-year-old former airforce sergeant, was arrested from Rajasthan’s Bhiwadi. His wife Urmila Gupta, 75, and son Mahesh Gupta, 52, were also arrested. Bansal and his wife were sent to 14-day judicial custody. His son, whom police said administered the building, was sent to two-day police custody.

The order was passed by Judicial Magistrate First Class Bhavya Kharail after all three were produced at her residence.

MCD suspends five officials after collapse

The government suspended five Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) officials as the Delhi High Court ordered a high-level inquiry into the incident, the second such building collapse in the Capital in less than four months.

Rescuers worked through the night to pull people buried under mounds of rubble and chunks of concrete as plumes of smoke blanketed the neighbourhood where cramped buildings flouting multiple guidelines house tens of thousands of students from DU, where official accommodation is dwarfed by the annual pupil intake.

The rescue operation concluded around 5.10pm on Monday and teams were withdrawn from the site, the Delhi Fire Service.

“My son had big dreams and I was working hard to make them come true…Everyone is telling us how bad the condition of the PG was. I wish my son had told me before. I would have never let him stay there,” said Dewas resident Bhupendra Jaj, whose son Arpit Jahaj was a 18-year-old student at ARSD college.

FIR blames illegal construction for collapse

Driven by greed, building owner Hariram Bansal and his brother constructed four illegal floors in a nearly 50-year-old structure despite knowing that the building’s foundation could give way under the additional load, the police FIR said.

The tragedy occurred around 1.30pm on Sunday when renovations were underway on the ground floor of the paying-guest accommodation, known as Hostel Daze. At the time, around were inside the building in a neighbourhood packed with matchbox buildings and cubbyholes offering little ventilation, dilapidated furniture, damp walls and blocked exit routes.

Seven people were pulled out dead from under the rubble. Five of them were students – Abhishek Kumar, 20, Yuvraj Soni, 20, Pawan Kumar, 17, Arpit Jahaj, 18, and Akshat Singh Yadav, 18.

The two others were Surinder Singh, 75, and Pawan Lal Kori, 30; both worked as labourers.

Those injured were Asgar Ali, 30, Neeraj Bawan, 19, Aditya Kumar, 19, Nitish Chib, 19 and Mohammad Ayan, 18, are students.

“[The building’s] owners are Hari Bansal and his brother, who for the greed of rent had constructed four floors and some new construction was also going on due to which a lot of pressure was on the building’s strength and due to that building’s load bearing strength had crossed and today it collapsed,” the FIR said.

PG housed students in cramped rooms

The building – opposite Sri Venkateswara College on the west of Benito Juarez Marg – was one of dozens of PG accommodations in the congested resettlement colony teeming with restaurants, cafes, roadside eateries, stationery shops and grocery stores. The building had about 15 rooms, with two to three students in each. Rooms were let on a twin- and triple-sharing basis at about ₹12,000 to ₹15,000 a bed per month.

Police said the building was owned by Bansal, a resident of Gurugram, and registered an FIR under sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 290 (negligent conduct with respect to pulling down, repairing or constructing buildings), and 125 (act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) at the South Campus police station.

According to the FIR, seen by HT, the load-bearing capacity of the building was overwhelmed by additional floors and fresh construction, resulting in its collapse. Bansal and his brother were mentioned as the owners of the building.

“Despite knowing very well that the existing building’s plinth could not handle a lot of weight and due to that the building could collapse and claim people’s lives, the building owner out of rent greed deliberately constructed the building to upper floors…by doing so the owner has caused loss to life and property. Hence, as per to the PCR call, entire circumstances and medico-legal certificates (MLCs of dead and injured), prima facie a cognizable offence under sections 105, 209 and 125(a) is found to have happened,” said the FIR, written mostly in Hindi.

The FIR No-153/2026 was registered on Sunday night on the complaint of assistant sub-inspector Praful Toppo. “Local enquiry revealed that Hostel Daze PG was running in the building comprising ground plus four upper floors…many students and people lived inside the building and some people trapped due to the sudden collapse of the building,” the FIR added.

Owner arrested in Bhiwadi, family members held

Deputy commissioner of police (southwest) Amit Goel said Bansal was arrested from Bhiwadi, where he had allegedly fled on Sunday. “During examination, it was found that the property is in Urmila’s name and was being managed and run by Hariram and Mahesh. Electricity connections of two floors are in Hariram’s name. He is a retired Sergeant from the Indian Air Force. Mahesh is running a hardware and paint shop,” Goel said.

A senior investigator said the probe showed the building did not have a beam to support the floors, the roof or any pillar, and that the owner had two shops on the ground floor and a basement adjacent to the shops where construction work was underway, leading to the collapse.

“He had planned to renovate the two shops and turn them into one. There was a wall in the middle which they had demolished which we suspect weakened the building. Water had also flooded the basement and he had planned to fill it with cement as a part of the renovation, therefore, there was also cement inside. All of this culminated in the weakening of the base which led to the collapse,” the officer said, requesting anonymity.

Another officer said the building was around 50-years-old and initially had two floors. “The construction of this building was not flagged to police before it collapsed,” added the second officer. Police said Hariram and his family own at least two more properties in the neighbourhood.

Delhi faces renewed scrutiny over building safety

The accident was the latest in a string of building failures and fires in Delhi over the past year that have raised questions about regulation, enforcement and the role of senior officials and ministers. On June 3, a fire at a bed-and-breakfast in Hauz Rani killed at least 23 people, including foreign nationals. Four days earlier, the collapse of an illegal building in adjacent Saidulajab killed six. In May, a fire tore through a residential building in Vivek Vihar, killing nine. On March 18, a blaze in a Palam Vihar building killed nine.

In the face of mounting criticism, MCD suspended deputy commissioner (DC) of the south zone, Rakesh Kumar, superintending engineer Ranvir Singh, executive engineer (building) Lalit Kumar Goel, assistant engineer (building) Sunil Chauhan, and junior engineer Ashish Kumar. The move came after chief minister Rekha Gupta’s order.

“The Delhi government, in coordination with MCD, is working towards introducing a policy under which every building used for public activities, whether a PG, nursing home, school or any other institution, would be required to undergo periodic structural audits and obtain building safety certification. No building would be allowed to conduct public activities without ensuring its safety,” said the CM.

Delhi plans structural audits for buildings used publicly

Lieutenant governor (LG) Taranjit Singh Sandhu directed urban development minister Ashish Sood to lead a committee with concerned senior officials to review institutional PG guidelines, explore alternative student accommodation and assess the feasibility of using unutilised DDA housing stock for student accommodation.

This is only the second time in 18 years that an IAS level officer (deputy commissioner) level officer has been suspended by the civic body in the aftermath of a building collapse. An MCD official said that Kumar was a 2015-batch officer promoted via the Bihar Public Service Commission, and was currently serving on deputation.

“All 12 zonal deputy commissioners in MCD are currently from other services serving on deputation. The maximum punishment in their case can be repatriation and recommendation of disciplinary action to the parent cadre,” the official added.