Noida: Police to book one more person for Sector 21 wall collapse

A 40m boundary wall of Jal Vayu Vihar Apartments collapsed on Tuesday morning while 12 people were cleaning the drain adjacent to it. Among the four killed were two minors, while eight others were also injured.

The Gautam Budh Nagar police, investigating the wall collapse in Noida’s Sector 21 on Tuesday that killed four daily wager workers cleaning a drain adjacent to the wall, said a thrid person is likely to be booked in the case, apart from the work contractor named by the injured workers, who is currently on the run, and the labour contractor, who was arrested on Tuesday itself.

Police teams have gone to Badaun on Thursday to record statements of the workers who survived the collapse. (Hindustan Times)

A 40m boundary wall of Jal Vayu Vihar Apartments collapsed on Tuesday morning while 12 people were cleaning the drain adjacent to it. Among the four killed were two minors, while eight others were also injured.

Acting on the complaint by one of the injured workers, an FIR was registered on Tuesday against Gul Mohammad, the labour contractor who supplied the workers, including two minor boys, to Sundar Yadav, the man they named as the one overseeing the drain work.

However, a third name has emerged in the course of the investigation, said police on Thursday, adding that the development came after investigators quizzed Noida authority’s deputy general manager Shripal Bhati about the ₹92 lakh tender awarded to the contractor for carrying out the drain cleaning and repair work.

Bhati confirmed that the police questioned him for seven hours, from 1pm to 8pm, on Wednesday.

“The investigators called me to the Sector 20 police station on Wednesday. They required some documents related to the tender awarded to the contractor. We informed the police that the main proprietor of the contract firm is Arjun Yadav and it was in his name that the drain work contract was awarded,” said Bhati.

“The contract names Arjun Yadav and Sundar Yadav was only overseeing the workers, which is why they named him in the FIR. We are examining the documents related to the tender and will add more names to the FIR upon further investigation,” said Harish Chander, deputy commissioner of police, Noida.

He said police teams have gone to Badaun on Thursday to record statements of the survivors.