Delhi PG collapse kills seven; owner arrested and MCD staff suspended

Seven people died after a five-storey paying-guest house named Hostel Daze collapsed in Satya Niketan at about 1.30 p.m. on Sunday, 6 September. Six of the dead were students. Police arrested the owner, named in FIRs as Hariram Bansal or Hariram Gupta, a Gurugram resident who had leased the plot. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi suspended five officials. Chief Minister Rekha Gupta ordered a magisterial inquiry.

The building stood on a 55-square-yard plot opposite Sri Venkateswara College, near Nanakpura Gurdwara and Delhi University's South Campus. Locals put its age at about 50 years. It had a basement and five floors above. Repair work was under way in the basement when the structure failed. Gupta said on Monday that water had collected in that basement and that the combination of water and the works caused the collapse.

Delhi Fire Service deputy chief A.K. Malik said the first call reached the control room at 1.23 p.m. Crews arrived at 1.33 p.m. Eight fire tenders, NDRF, SDRF, ITBP and Delhi Police worked through the night. By Monday morning Gupta said about 80 percent of the debris above the basement had been cleared.

AIIMS JPN Apex Trauma Centre received 11 patients. Early hospital notes listed five brought dead and one who died under treatment. Three patients were admitted, one after limb surgery. One patient with minor injuries was discharged. A 19-year-old taken to Safdarjung Hospital was listed as stable. Police later confirmed a seventh death as search teams pulled another body from the pile. Twelve people in total were accounted for as rescued or recovered. Witnesses told local reporters that two to four dozen people may have been inside. Sunday was a college holiday, so many tenants were in their rooms.

An FIR was registered under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 105, 290 and 125(a) against the owner and others. Southwest Delhi DCP Surender Chaudhary confirmed the deaths and the rescue count as it rose through Sunday night. CCTV from a shop across the lane showed the facade dropping in one movement. Shopkeepers in the frame ran clear.

On Monday the Delhi High Court said it was concerned about the safety of students in paying-guest houses and directed the MCD to inspect every PG hostel in its jurisdiction within a week. Satya Niketan and neighbouring Anand Niketan are packed with rooms rented to students from Rajasthan, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and other states. Rents cited by tenants after the collapse ran from Rs 15,000 to Rs 30,000 a month, plus deposits that operators often keep.

The collapse came three months after a fire at a South Delhi bed-and-breakfast killed 29 people. Gupta visited the Satya Niketan site on Monday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a condolence note on Sunday night. Students in nearby PGs began leaving for home or for relatives' houses the same evening.

The legal file now has three tracks: the criminal case against the owner and anyone else named in the FIR, the magisterial inquiry ordered by the chief minister, and the High Court deadline for MCD inspections. None of those processes will put the basement back. The immediate question for South Campus is how many other 50-year-old houses on 55-yard plots are still taking paying guests while work continues underneath.