Delhi basement horror: Why was SUV driver arrested?

The Delhi police arrested seven persons so far, including a driver of an SUV vehicle, on Monday in connection with the deaths of three students in basement flooding at a coaching centre in Old Rajinder Nagar.

DCP (Central) M Harshvardhan said that the SUV driver was arrested based on a video that was widely shared on social media platforms, which showed the accused pass by the coaching institute on his vehicle at a very high speed and later the gate of the building was found damaged.

The police identified the driver and the vehicle through the CCTV footage of the area.

"Negligence has been established on the part of the arrested driver, who has been arrested in the Old Rajender Nagar case. He was driving the vehicle very fast, due to which the gate of the coaching centre broke. Before he hit the building gate, a street vendor had tried to stop him," the DCP said.

According to the police, the flow of water towards the institute became faster after the vehicle passed by, flooding its premises.

"At the beginning of the video, the gate of the coaching institute was fine, but after the car passed, it broke and fell down. The accused driver has no connection with the coaching owner or the building owner," DCP Harshvardhan said.

Shreya Yadav of Ambedkar Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, Tanya Soni from Telangana, and Navin Dalwin from Ernakulam in Kerala died after the basement of a building housing the coaching institute was flooded following heavy rain on Saturday evening.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the basement housed a library where several students were present when water suddenly started flooding the area.

Meanwhile, police said the owner and the coordinator of the coaching centre where the deaths occurred were arrested on Sunday.