Tragedy at Rau’s coaching center; 3 students die due to rising water in the basement.

With the tragic death of three students due to flooding in the basement of an IAS coaching institute, new revelations are emerging against the management’s negligence in Delhi’s Rajendra Nagar. It has been found that a complaint regarding the unauthorised operation of a library in the basement had been lodged a month prior; no action was taken.

One such student, Kishor, who was preparing for the UPSC exams, had this shocking revelation to share with the AIIMS. “An unauthorized library was functioning in the institute’s basement. Complaints were filed regarding this a month ago on June 26, but no action was taken. Had concrete steps been taken then, today’s tragedy of the death of three students could have been avoided,” he said.

He said that he had lodged a complaint against the institute with the Lok Shikayat Nideshak. Majority of the institutes in Rajendra Nagar are running unauthorized libraries. No special security arrangements were made for these libraries. It is because of the administration’s negligence that the incident took place on Saturday. Action should have been taken earlier.

Rau’s coaching center

In the incident, maximum negligence is on the part of the Delhi Nagar Nigam, whose officials take bribes from people here.” It is worth mentioning that the identities of three students, who lost their lives due to flooding in the basement of the institute, have been identified by Delhi Police. As per Delhi Police, the names of the deceased are Shreya Yadav, Tanya Soni, and Nevin Dalvin.

According to Delhi Police, Shreya Yadav was a resident of Ambedkarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. Tanya Soni hailed from Telangana, and Nevin Dalvin was from Ernakulam, Kerala. Heavy rain occurred in Delhi on Saturday evening, after which water filled the basement of a coaching institute located in Old Rajendra Nagar area. Many students were there in the basement; some of them managed to come out, but unfortunately, the three students who were busy preparing for UPSC exams lost their lives due to excessive flooding.

In fact, places like Karol Bagh, and many other parts of Delhi, are thronged by students seeking UPSC coaching. One such locality is the Old Rajendra Nagar, which has more than 50,000 students living on rent. Students point out that one critical issue in this locality is the incessant hike in rent by house owners and brokers. Students say house owners just arbitrarily increase rents and threaten to vacate premises forthwith if the rents are not increased.

Recently, one hassled student committed suicide over the issue. On the evening of July 21, Ankita Gopanarayan, from Akola in Maharashtra, who was staying in Block 10 of Old Rajendra Nagar and was preparing for the UPSC exams, committed suicide by hanging herself. She has left behind a suicide note in which she had written about the hassle of paying rent to brokers.

Her uncle, Amar Patrode, arrived from Akola to Delhi on Sunday and came to fetch her post-mortem report. He told News18 Hindi, “The room which Ankita used to live in had a rent of Rs 15,500 per month.” Ankita had returned from Goa with her family on July 20 and was immediately asked by the landlord to increase the rent by Rs 3,000 per month; otherwise, she would have to vacate by August 1.

According to Amar, she hailed from a middle-class family; her father is with the Maharashtra Police. The increased rent added to her worries, largely due to the already expensive costs of education. This, in fact, she mentioned in her suicide note. She called up her mother and aunt and spoke with them at about 2.30 pm on July 21, but ended her life by about 7 pm the same evening.

Vishal Shinde from Block 10 said, “Most of the problems here are due to high rent and brokers who on their whim increase the rents.” He added, “This situation demands the attention of the government to prevent such a situation for the coming future students.”.