'Imagine Dying Like This, And That Too In Delhi'

'They charge such high fees and offer us this safety. Our lives have become a mockery.'

Chaos reigned supreme at the Karol Bagh metro station on Sunday after hundreds of students, mostly civil servant aspirants, raised slogans: "We want justice," prompting police intervention.

A scuffle also erupted between the students and police, after which a few protestors were detained.

The students were demanding a fair investigation into the deaths of the three civil service aspirants who were drowned in the flooded basement of a coaching centre in Delhi's Old Rajinder Nagar area on Saturday.

The three civil servant aspirants who died include Tanya Soni, 25, who hailed from Telangana, and a student of Delhi University, Navin Dalwin, 29, from Ernakulam, was pursuing a PhD in Arts and Aesthetics from JNU, and Shreya Yadav, 25, a native of Uttar Pradesh's Ambedkar Nagar.

"We come here with such big dreams of changing the country," said Pankaj Kumar, a 28-year-old aspirant, who was a part of the protest.

"Imagine dying like this, and that too in the capital".

Another aspirant, who studied at the coaching centre, said the primary responsibility lies with the institute.

"They charge such high fees and offer us this safety," he said.

"Our lives have become a subject of mockery."

Reports suggest that the only biometric entry and exit point in the basement got blocked due to a power failure in the building and students got trapped inside.

While the police are yet to confirm the reason for the flooding, objections have been raised on the violations of the building in question.

A recent fire safety certificate issued by the fire department, and seen by Business Standard, showed that the basement was for parking and storage. It was, however, being used as a library.

According to Delhi's civic norms, if a basement is being used for commercial purposes, there should be a sufficient number of entry and exit gates. However, in this establishment, there was only one entry/exit.

The National Disaster Response Force conducted a seven-hour operation, after which it recovered the bodies of the three students.

The owner and coordinator of the coaching institute have been arrested.

The coaching centre issued a statement on Sunday saying it was 'fully committed to supporting the ongoing investigations into the tragic incident'.

Opposition parties in Delhi on Sunday termed as 'murder' the death of the three civil services aspirants and the incident a 'man-made disaster', as they attacked the Aam Aadmi party-led Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and government over the tragedy.

AAP, however, sought to blame the Bharatiya Janata Party over the incident, saying though the BJP was in power in the municipal body for 15 years, it neglected the city's drainage system.

"Our government has been in power for the last one year and we are working on drainage. I do not want to get into any blame game. I want that there should be an impartial investigation and strict action taken against those responsible," Rajinder Nagar MLA and MCD in-charge Durgesh Pathak said.

Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena on Sunday said the incident was indicative of the 'larger malaise of misgovernance that Delhi has been subjected to during the last decade'.

Delhi Mayor Shelly Oberoi directed Ashwani Kumar, commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, to take strict action against commercial activities run in the basements and ascertain if an MCD official is responsible for the mishap.

Last year, a fire at a coaching centre in Delhi's Mukherjee Nagar, resulted in injuries to over 60 students.

In April this year, the Delhi high court constituted a team of lawyers, headed by advocate Gautam Narayan, to inspect coaching centres operating in Mukherjee Nagar.

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com