Surat fire tragedy: Tuition class had illegal power connection, floor was regularized against norms, four arrested

Surat: Surat Crime Branch on Tuesday made four fresh arrests in Takshashila building fire tragedy (May 24) in which 22 children were killed.

According to City police commissioner Satish Sharma, among four arrested today was PD Munshi, SMC(Surat Municipal Corporation) executive engineer who was Varachha zone incharge. He had regularized the upper floor of building under the Impact Fee law without physical check. Munshi had regularized the construction ignoring the fact that the dome which was caught in fire was erected after cut-off date prescribed in Impact Fee law.

Another SMC official arrested is Executive engineer Jayesh Solanki who was incharge of Varachha zone. One of the four sections on upper floor was regularized by Solanki without physical check. In this case too the construction had taken place after cut-off date prescribed in Impact Fee law.

One more person arrested is Dipak Nayak, a deputy Engineer of DGVCL in Sarthana area. The tuition class which gutted in fire had illegal power connection, through which multiple(total 8) ACs were functioning. This irregularity was going on since long. Nayak had not taken any action. Nayak was responsible for other lapses too according to police. Sharma said, evidences have been found that a transformer close to Takshashila building had no fuse applied which was against the rule. Also the power connection was not shut off after fire broke out. Maintenance too was not done properly.

Ravindra Kumar, a builder-partner who allegedly flouted construction rules is also among four arrested on Tuesday.

With this, the number of people arrested in the case has gone up to nine.
Among the five arrested earlier were Bhargav Butani, owner of the coaching class, and builders Harshul Vekaria and Jignesh Paghdal.

DeshGujarat