‘Incident could have been avoided...’

New Delhi: Students protesting against Rau’s IAS Study Circle in Rajinder Nagar regarding the unfortunate event on Saturday declared that they would henceforth not be entering the building and demanded a return on their tuition fees.

Divyanshu Singh Yadav, a student representative of the protest and one of the first to be on the scene, said, “Each student pays Rs 1,75,500 to study here, with these exorbitant prices there’s an expectation of appropriate infrastructure. There is always waterlogging outside the basement where the cars are parked, this was an incident waiting to happen and could have been avoided had the institution appropriately allocated its funds.”

Divyanshu was at the library at noon with his classmates, after which he returned home. Upon receiving information of the flooding he returned to the scene with a team of several classmates and students from DU. His friend who was still in the library at the time of the incident, was still trapped in the building when Divyanshu arrived. While his friend was fortunate to make it out physically unharmed, 3 other students were not. The incident resulted in the deaths of 3 students, who were identified as Tanya Soni, Shreya Yadav and Nevin Dalwin.

Divyanshu said, “These coaching institutes have the funds to provide safe infrastructure for their students. Since waterlogging is an issue in Delhi, low-lying areas such as libraries are not safe areas to conduct such activities. We appeal to the authorities to shut down these illegal libraries. We deserve safe areas to study.”

He claimed that the exorbitant fees paid by the students are allegedly being ushered into corruptive routes. He stated that the students who lost their lives in the incident deserved better.

He said, “The mental toll of the incident cannot be undone, the trauma we all suffered will be present with us. We demand our money back and will not be entering that building or studying with this institution any longer.”