Three UPSC candidates lost their lives on Saturday when the basement of Rau’s IAS Study Circle in Old Rajinder Nagar, Delhi, flooded. The incident caused nationwide indignation, leading to accusations being exchanged between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Tanya Soni (from Telangana), Nivin Dalwin (from Kerala), and Shreya Yadav (from Uttar Pradesh) have all died as a result of the incident.
After heavy rains caused waterlogging on the road in Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar, the gate to Rau’s IAS Study Circle burst and water poured in. The building’s basement, which at the time housed 20–25 students, was where the water pooled.
The nearest weather station to Old Rajinder Nagar, the PUSA weather station operated by the Met department, recorded 31.5 mm of rain on Saturday between 5.30 and 8.30 p.m.
In order to avoid electrocution, security personnel on the floor above shut off the power supply as about fifteen pupils fled the basement. They haul three or four people out of the basement. Water had risen to the road’s level at 7:00 p.m.
After arriving at the scene with four pumps to empty the water from the building’s basement onto the road, Delhi Police squads and five fire engines left the scene. There was a second pump supplied by the MCD.
We got a call around 7 o’clock in the evening reporting that several persons were stuck in a flooded basement in the Old Rajinder Nagar neighbourhood. As everyone is aware, there was a lot of waterlogging on the roads and adjacent buildings in the evening due to the heavy rains that fell in the area. According to DCP Central M Harsha Vardhan, “We are looking into how the basement flooded, but it is a fact that the basement flooded very quickly, which is why some people got trapped inside.”
After about sixty minutes, divers from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were dispatched to the scene to help with the student evacuation.
Six feet below in the water, the body of Shreya Yadav, a female student, is found.
After then, Tanya Soni, the second victim, had her body found.
After water is pushed out onto the road, Nivin Dalwin’s body is found.
After the search and rescue efforts were concluded early on Sunday, July 28, the Delhi Police opened a criminal case.
Some of the protesting students were eyewitnesses to the incident, and they asserted that the building’s access is regulated by a biometric system, meaning that anybody inside would be unable to escape in the event of a power loss. Later on Sunday night, they organized a candle march as well.
The episode was described as “indicative of the larger malaise of misgovernance that Delhi has been subjected to during the last decade or so” by Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena. Divisional Commissioner Manish Kumar Gupta was also instructed by the L-G to deliver a report by Tuesday that addresses every facet of the floods.
Five more people were taken into custody by the Delhi Police on Monday, bringing the total to seven. The CEO of Rau and the owner of the basement are two among them.
