A day after a five-storey building collapsed in Mahad town of Raigad district, some 170 kilometres from Mumbai, killing 11 people, police booked five persons on various charges, including culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
According to Raigad District Superintendent of Police, Anil Paraskar, a First information Report (FIR) was registered on Tuesday at Mahad city police station against the builder and four others: architect, RCC consultant and two civic officials. No arrests have been made till now.
According to the FIR, the builder, along with the architect and RCC consultant, was responsible for constructing the building using inferior material and without proper attention. The FIR also charged two civic officials of issuing completion certificate without properly inspecting the site. The Navi Mumbai based developer had constructed the building in partnership with a local landowner based on the 50:50 formula of sharing profit, said police officials.
Those booked by police are identified as Farooq Kazi, a developer; Gaurav Shah, architect; Bahubali Dhamane, RCC consultant; Deepak Jhisand, former Mahad Municipal council chief and Shashikant Dighe, junior construction inspector at Mahad Municipal Council. Repeated attempts made to reach out to all the five named in the FIR did not bear result.
They have been booked under IPC sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting murder), 304-A (Causing death by negligence), 337 and 338 (causing hurt to any person, and 34 (criminal act carried out by several persons with common intention). The Tariq garden building with 40 flats was completed in two years’ time after which people started living there, according to the FIR.
{{/usCountry}}They have been booked under IPC sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting murder), 304-A (Causing death by negligence), 337 and 338 (causing hurt to any person, and 34 (criminal act carried out by several persons with common intention). The Tariq garden building with 40 flats was completed in two years’ time after which people started living there, according to the FIR.
{{/usCountry}}Paraskar said around 95 people were there in the building on the day it came crashing down. “Of the 95 persons, 75 managed to come out while the NDRF was able to pull out 11 bodies till 4 pm.” Six men and five women were among the dead.
Maharashtra minister for urban development Eknath Shinde, who visited the building site, said, orders have been issued to police to act against all those responsible for the incident. “We will not spare anyone responsible for the building collapse. Information is being gathered on whether a structural audit of this building was conducted or not.”
District guardian minister Aditi Tatkare said a committee will be formed to probe the incident. “The committee will probe how and why this happened. At the same time, structural audit will be carried out of other buildings to prevent similar incidents,” said Tatkare.