4 arrested for labourer’s death at illegal building construction site

Soon after the incident on Friday, the developer and contractor sent the woman’s body to her village in Palghar district for the last rites without reporting the incident to the police or any other authorities

MUMBAI: The Naigaon police have arrested four men, including the developer and contractor, three days after a 22-year-old labourer, Ruksana Lahne, died and three others were injured in a slab collapse at an illegal building construction site in Kaman area, Vasai east.

4 arrested for labourer’s death at illegal building construction site

Soon after the incident on Friday, the developer and contractor sent the woman’s body to her village in Palghar district for the last rites without reporting the incident to the police or any other authorities. They had also allegedly tried to bribe the relatives to win them over on their side.

Their efforts were however foiled when local social workers and members of the Shiv Sena informed Naigaon police about the incident. Subsequently, police registered an FIR and arrested the accused for destroying evidence, constructing a building without permissions and causing death due to negligence.

According to the police, the incident took place around 1.30pm on Friday, when labourers on the site of the unauthorized construction of a chawl at Belkawadi area of Kaman at Vasai East, were having lunch when a wall collapsed.

The contractor and developer soon got into a cover-up bid, bribed and pressurised the deceased’s relatives and warned them not to speak about it, and packed off Lahne’s body to her village in Palghar for cremation without conducting a post-mortem. The accused also allegedly removed the CCTV cameras installed in another property near the site.

When the incident came to light, the Palghar district Shiv Sena (Shinde group) chief Nilesh Tendolkar on Sunday warned the police of agitation if no case was registered. Following the tip-off by Tendolkar, on Monday, the Naigaon Police registered a case under Sections 105, 238, 3 (5) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita.

“We have registered the case against Dinesh Jain, 58, Nitish Jain, 33, Kannan Soni, 40, Faraj Khan, 32, and arrested the four persons. We are looking for Pradeep Gupta,” said Ramesh Bhame, senior police inspector of Naigaon Police Station.