Two builders held for Thane building collapse
Thane (Maharashtra) : Maharashtra Police Saturday arrested two builders in connection with the collapse of a seven-floor building here that killed 72 people, even as rescuers ended their 42-hour operations, police said.
“We have taken into custody builders Jamil Qureshi and Salim Shaikh. An FIR was registered against them for culpable homicide after the seven-floor building collapsed Thursday,” Thane Police Commissioner K.P. Raghuvanshi told IANS.
He said Qureshi was taken into custody in Uttar Pradesh and Shaikh was arrested in Thane.
Another builder, Adnan Shaikh, involved in the construction of the building, is absconding, police said.
The building, in Lucky Compound in Shilphata area on the outskirts of Thane city, collapsed around 6.30 p.m. Thursday. The unauthorised building came up in three months, without the relevant permissions and certificates.
After 42 gruelling hours of rescue operations, disaster management officials pulled 72 dead and 62 injured people out of the debris, an official said.
Local disaster management officials said that those dead included 33 men, 22 women and 17 children.
Of the 62 injured, 36 have been admitted to hospitals in Thane, Kalwa and Mumbra. The seriously injured have been shifted to JJ and Sion Hospitals in Mumbai.
Deepak Chavan, Thane civic agency’s deputy municipal commissioner in-charge of illegal construction, and area senior police inspector K.P. Naik were placed under suspension from service for allegedly ignoring the violations in the illegal building.
