Kalyan bldg collapse: 10-kg machine used to renovate 4th floor flat in shaky structure

THANE: Kalyan court remands Krushna Chaurasiya to five days custody for culpable homicide after his apartment collapse killed six and injured six others.

THANE: A Kalyan magistrate court remanded Krushna Chaurasiya, owner of the fourth-floor apartment in the four-storeyed Shri Saptashrungi building, in Kalyan East, to five days police custody on Wednesday. Chaurasia was arrested on Tuesday night by Kolsewadi police, on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, after the floor of his apartment caved in resulting in the successive collapse of the third and second floors, which led to the deaths of six people and left six others injured, earlier in the afternoon.

Kalyan bldg collapse: 10-kg machine used to renovate 4th floor flat in shaky structure

According to police officials, Chaurasiya, who owns a small paan shop in the neighbourhood, had ordered renovations in his house despite the 30-year-old building being declared “dangerous to live in” recently by the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC), and the municipal commissioner Abhinav Goel ordering officials of the J-Ward to carry out its structural audit immediately.

Chaurasiya and his family had shifted to a neighbouring building a month ago giving up the house for renovation. At the time of the incident on Tuesday, said police, while Chaurasiya was out to purchase construction material along with a labourer, another labourer was cementing the floor of the flat, when the crash occurred. Unheeding the civic body’s warning about the fragile state of the building, workers were allegedly re-tiling the floor that further weakened the structure, leading to the collapse, said police.

Chaurasiya was produced before Judge N P Vasade’s court on Wednesday. After hearing the arguments presented by the police, Vasade pointed out that residents had also alleged that a breaker machine, weighing approximately 10 kilograms, was deployed to extricate the floor tiles. The machine generates substantial pressure and vibrations when put to use by the contractors. Work started on Monday, the residents told police, despite their repeated insistence to put a halt to it.

Taking all this into account, the court remanded the accused to police custody for five days. Assistant commissioner of police, Kolsewadi PS, K Ghete confirmed the same. Meanwhile, forensic teams also arrived at the site, where a heap of debris stands, to collect samples of the collapsed structure.

Building was partially demolished in 1994

An investigating officer confirmed the tax receipt of the building states the absence of occupation certificate.

Hindustan Times spoke to social worker and RTI activist Shrinivas Ghanekar, who has consistently fought against the rash of illegal construction in areas under KDMC’s jurisdiction for two decades, and has a petition pending in the Bombay high court (HC) on the issue. He recalled the Shri Saptashrungi building featuring on his list. “Part of it was demolished in 1994 by KDMC using gas cutters as the structure was illegal. But later it was completed. Who gave the permission? The collapse of the fourth-floor slab triggered a chain reaction, leading to material and human tragedy,” said Ghanekar, adding he had dashed off a letter to the civic commissioner attaching the judgment of Justice Oka which stated “ward officers should be held responsible when such illegal constructions flourish”.

A KDMC officer said, “We are conducting a detailed inquiry and reviewing all documentation related to this building. Since the J-Ward office came into existence only in 2016, and the building was constructed in 1994, we are in the process of tracing all relevant records and documents.”

Later in the evening, Goel confirmed that KDMC had “formed a committee to inquire into the details of the building’s status and other issues related to the incident”. Goel told HT that he has directed assistant commissioners “to take strict measures to prevent casualties from the collapse of dangerous buildings”. Goel held a review meeting on Wednesday where he instructed the staff to maintain updated contact lists and ensure shelter home facilities are available in cases of emergencies. Any negligence by officials could result in suspension, he said, people in the know shared with HT.