Death toll in Surat building collapse reaches 7, woman rescued | India News – Times of India

SURAT: Seven people were found dead and one rescued after a night search under the rubble of a six-storey residential building that collapsed in Surat’s industrial district on Saturday. Sachin.
Officers charged the builders – a mother-son duo – with manslaughter not amounting to murder and arrested an assistant. The victims, either industrial workers or their relatives, included five residents of MP Sidhi, a teenager from Ayodhya and a resident of Surat. A 20-year-old woman was found alive in the rubble early Sunday morning and has been hospitalized.
Ashwin Vekariya, who works for construction companies Ramila and Raj Kakadiya, was arrested and charged under Sections 105 (manslaughter not amounting to murder) and 54 (aiding and abetting) of the new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which replaced the IPC on July 1. Ramila has been “evading arrest” while her son is currently in the US, said Assistant Commissioner of Police N P Gohil.
The building named Kailash Raj Residency was constructed in 2016 when Sachin Village was within the limits of Pali Panchayat. The village became a part of Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) in 2020.
On April 26 this year, SMC issued a notice asking the owners to evacuate the tenants as “serious structural defects” were found, including cracks in the RCC beams, columns, balconies and slabs. In his statement to the police, Assistant Engineer Mayank Velwan of SMC’s South Zone B said there were “visible cracks in the walls and exposed iron rods which made the building unfit for habitation”.
The cluster is part of the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) belt of Surat, which houses textile, chemical, engineering and allied units. Many tenants had vacated the building after noticing loose concrete chunks and other defects, but the builders and their associates allegedly rented out houses to new tenants without carrying out repairs, police said.