People took photos but no one helped, says friend of 19-year-old killed in Delhi storm

“I kept screaming and pleading but no one tried to help us,” says Deepak Varun.

As dozens of bricks and mortar landed on 19-year-old Rohit Kumar in southeast Delhi during Sunday’s storm, eyewitnesses chose to take pictures instead of providing help, said the victim’s friend who was with him during the accident.

Debris falling from the third floor of a house in southeast Delhi’s Jaitpur area cracked open Rohit Kumar’s skull on Sunday evening, according to his friend Deepak Varun. (HT Photo)

Debris falling from the third floor of a house in southeast Delhi’s Jaitpur area cracked open Rohit Kumar’s skull on Sunday evening, according to his friend Deepak Varun (16).

Recounting the incident leaves him more angry than sad, he said. “How can people be so apathetic? There are some two dozen houses in the vicinity where the accident happened. Yet, no one stepped forward to help Rohit. I kept screaming and pleading but no one tried to help us. Instead, people came out, took pictures, filmed videos and then either left the scene or simply stood there doing nothing,” said Varun, who was accompanying Kumar to a shop at the time of the incident.

Varun says he will have to live with the regret of not pulling Kumar away from the bricks at the last second.

“As the first set of bricks fell near my feet, I was alarmed. I screamed, warning Rohit to move away, but as he had headphones on, he could not hear me. Before I could rush and drag him away, he was crushed under the bricks,” said Varun.

Varun said he did not have a cellphone, so he could not call the police himself. Kumar’s phone did not have the balance to make a call, he added.

“The only option left was to run home and ask for help. I ran back to Rohit’s house which is little over half a kilometre away and alerted his family. I went back to the accident spot with some of his family members. By that time, someone had made a PCR call and a police team rushed Rohit to a hospital,” said Varun.

The police said Kumar was rushed to Apollo Hospital where he was declared brought dead.

Varun said that he thinks the delay in hospitalisation led to Kumar’s death.

HT visited the accident spot and spoke to a few residents. They said there was not much they could do to save Kumar. “He was lying motionless. So we presumed he was dead. I don’t know what else we could have done,” said Kalawati, a housewife who said she was one of the many people who witnessed the accident that killed Kumar.