india

Updated: Jun 29, 2019 17:28 IST

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday ordered an “in-depth inquiry” into the Pune wall collapse that killed at least 15 labourers including 4 children and a woman, authorities hinted several irregularities and inferior construction was likely behind the incident.

Kondhwa police filed FIR against 15 persons including the developers, contractor and site engineer of the under construction site housing labourers and the housing project whose retaining wall collapsed.

Retaining wall of Alcon Stylus housing society in Kondhwa area of Pune city collapsed post-midnight Saturday on labourers’ shanties set up at an adjacent under construction site. 15 bodies were pulled out early morning while two injured were being treated at city’s Sassoon Hospital.

Developers of Alcon Stylus housing society, Jagdish Agrawal, Rajesh Agrawal, Sachin Agrawal, Vivek Agrawal, Vipul Agrawal, were booked along with the site engineer, contractor and supervisor for culpable homicide not amounting to murder (304) and common intention (34) of the Indian Penal Code. The adjoining construction site’s developers, Pankaj Vora, Sures Shah, Rashmikant Gandhi, were also named in the FIR along with the site engineer, contractor and supervisor.

While heavy rains on Friday night were the immediate trigger, residents of Alcon Stylus pointed out that the retaining wall had tilted to one side raising questions over construction quality. Residents say they had underlined the risk in a written complaint to the builder in February.

Following orders from chief minister, Pune District Collector Naval Kishore Ram constituted a five member committee to probe the incident.

“Action will be taken against the guilty once the committee submits its report within 7 days. Prima facie, it seems that the builder is at fault. We will conduct a detailed inquiry and the guilty will be punished,” said Ram.

Pune police commissioner, District Collector, College of Engineering Pune (COEP), City engineer of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) are members of the probe-committee .

Prashant Waghmare, city engineer of the PMC said, “The builder illegally let the workers build their homes in this manner near the wall and hence the builder seems to be at fault. However, the final determination will be done only after the inquiry.”

Waghmare also suspected housing society’s 15-feet high retaining wall was built in violation of norms. He said, “COEP has been ordered to carry out the structural audit. We suspect that there were problems in the wall which lead to this accident.”