Coaching centre deaths: Students form 15-member team to raise demands protest enters 4th day

PTI, Jul 31, 2024, 12:57 PM IST

Students protesting the Rajinder Nagar coaching centre deaths on Wednesday said a coordination committee comprising 15 members has been formed to decide the protest’s future course of action and communicate with the authorities concerned.

Meanwhile, their protest over the deaths of three civil services aspirants at a flooded basement of the Rau’s Study Circle entered the fourth day.
Senior police officers are visiting the protest site and interacting with the demonstrators to understand their demands, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) M Harsha Vardhan said.

“We have formed a 15-member committee and the committee members will decide further course of action,” said Goutam, a civil services aspirant.

Aspirants from different coaching centres have been staging a dharna in front of Rau’s Study Circle from Sunday.

Some students also started a hunger strike on Tuesday against the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to press their demands.

“We will continue our protest till our demands are met,” another student Sunil Kumar said.

DCP Vardhan said, “On Tuesday, committee members formed by the students had met Delhi LG. I have also given them (students) information about what action has been taken, and how far the investigation has gone.”

The Delhi Police on Tuesday questioned VP Gupta, the father-in-law of the owner of the coaching centre.

The police have also asked four municipal officers to join the investigation.

A senior police officer said that they questioned Gupta about ownership rights of the coaching centre, adding that they may also call Rau’s IAS Study Circle owner Abhishek Gupta’s wife for questioning.

Five people, including four co-owners of basement of the building where the coaching centre was functioning were arrested.

The driver of an SUV which drove through the flooded street, causing the water to swell and breach the gates of the three-storey building and inundate the basement, was among the five arrested. The SUV was also seized.

Three students identified as Shreya Yadav, Tanya Soni, and Nevin Dalvin have died in the incident after rain water gushed inside of basement of a coaching institute building in Old Rajinder Nagar on July 27 evening.