Satya Niketan collapse kills seven; High Court orders citywide PG audit

The five-storey paying-guest building that fell in Satya Niketan at about 1.30 p.m. on Sunday killed seven people. Rescue teams finished clearing the debris at 5.10 p.m. on Monday after more than 27 hours. Five others were in hospital. Chief Fire Officer A.K. Malik said 12 or 13 people had been pulled from the rubble in total.

Most of the dead were students who had come to Delhi University's South Campus from other states. Police and hospital records named Abhishek, 20, from Sonebhadra in Uttar Pradesh; Yuvraj Soni, 20, from Durg in Chhattisgarh; Pawan, listed as 17 or 21 in different briefings, from Auraiya in Uttar Pradesh and enrolled at Motilal Nehru College; Arpit Jahaj, 19, from Dewas in Madhya Pradesh; and Akshat Singh Yadav, 18, from Katni in Madhya Pradesh. Surinder Singh, 75, a labourer, also died. One other young person was listed as unidentified in some early tallies.

The injured were named as Asgar Ali, 30, and four students: Neeraj Bawa, 19, Aditya Kumar, 19, Nitish Chib, 19, and Md Ayan, 18.

Delhi Police arrested Hariram Gupta, an 81- or 82-year-old retired Indian Air Force sergeant, his wife Urmila Gupta, 75, in whose name the property stood, and their son Mahesh Gupta, 52. A court sent Hariram and Urmila to 14 days of judicial custody and Mahesh to two days of police remand. Officers said the men ran the boys' PG. Some reports said Hariram was found in Bhiwadi, Rajasthan, after a lookout circular.

The building stood on a plot of about 55 square yards in a resettlement colony. Estimates of its age ranged from about 30 to 50 years. Repair work was under way on the ground floor when the structure came down. CCTV from a shop across the lane showed the collapse in seconds.

Five Municipal Corporation of Delhi officials from the South Zone were suspended: Deputy Commissioner Rakesh Kumar, Superintending Engineer Ranvir Singh, Executive Engineer Lalit Kumar Goel, Assistant Engineer Sunil Chauhan and Junior Engineer Ashish Kumar. Chief Minister Rekha Gupta had already ordered a magisterial inquiry on Sunday evening after visiting the site.

The Delhi High Court went further on Monday. A bench of Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia called the deaths most unfortunate and said blame could not stop at the owner. The judges said the MCD and Delhi University also had questions to answer because outstation students are pushed into private PGs when hostels are short. They directed the corporation to inspect paying-guest buildings under its charge within a week, at the highest executive level, and to check permissions, bye-laws and unauthorised floors. Replies were sought in ten days. The matter is listed for 25 September.

The court also tied the collapse to a housing shortage that is not new. Satya Niketan, Mukherjee Nagar, Rajinder Nagar, Laxmi Nagar and Saket are the lanes where outstation students rent rooms in buildings that have grown floor by floor. Gupta has now ordered structural audits in those hubs. Delhi University's vice-chancellor ordered a safety review of student accommodation after the High Court speaking order.

The criminal case against Hariram includes culpable homicide and charges for neglecting a structure and endangering others. That file will move on its own clock. The civic file is the one that will decide whether Monday's inspection order becomes a list of locked doors or another notice that sits in a ward office. Seven people are dead in a 55-yard plot next to a university that still cannot house the students it admits.