Tenant nabbed over Jaitpur wall collapse that killed 7; landlord absconding: Police

NEW DELHI: A day after seven people were killed in a wall collapse in southeast Delhi’s Jaitpur, police on Sunday arrested a 49-year-old tenant of the building for illegally housing several people there.

The landlord, however, remains on the run, police said.

On Saturday morning, a wall of a samadhi sthal in Hari Nagar, near Mohan Baba Mandir, collapsed in heavy rain.

According to police, the structure stood on a plot used for dumping scrap and was not meant for residential use.

The deceased were Ravibul, 27, and his seven-year-old daughter Ruksana; Hasina, also seven, and her mother, 25-year-old Rubina.

Others were Assam native Safiqul, 27, and his 28-year-old wife Doli, and Muttu Ali, 50, a native of West Bengal.

Rubina’s 25-year-old husband, Hasibul, a native of West Bengal’s Murshidabad district, is undergoing treatment at the Safdarjung Hospital Trauma Centre. “During investigation, we arrested tenant Kurshid, 49, a resident of Radhakantapur village in West Bengal’s Nadia district. He had accommodated the families on the premises for scrap-related work,” said a police officer.

The landlord, Rajbir Bhati, who lives in the same area, is absconding. “Raids are being conducted to trace and apprehend him,” the officer said.

A case has been registered under sections 106 (abetment of an offence), 125 (negligence concerning a building) and 290 (public nuisance) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at Jaitpur Police Station.

The Delhi Fire Service (DFS) received a call about the wall collapse on Saturday at 9.16 am. Three minutes before, police got a call with the person saying, “Badi deewar gir gayi hai (a big wall has fallen),” and several people were trapped under the debris. Three fire tenders were rushed to the spot.

Jaitpur police broke through a collapsed wall, rescuing eight trapped migrant workers from West Bengal and Assam. Rushed to AIIMS and Safdarjung, only one survived. They lived in huts

and dealt in scrap.