The death toll in Monday evening’s building collapse at Lalita Park in Laxmi Nagar area of east Delhi climbed to 66 on Tuesday. The owner of the building, Mr Amritpal Singh, has been arrested by the east Delhi police and booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

Rescue operations continued 24 hours after the incident and the possibility that more persons remained trapped in the debris has not yet been ruled out. More than 130 people were being treated for injuries, at least 40 of whom were reported to be critical, leading to dears that the toll may rise further.
The Delhi government and the MCD have instituted separate inquiries into the incident. Delhi lieutenant-governor Tejendra Khanna has ordered a structural safety survey of the houses along the banks of the Yamuna river to ascertain the number of buildings that are too weak for even retrofitting. Such buildings will be demolished.
The arrested accused has earlier been involved in over 20 cases, including that of murder, excise violation and receiving stolen property. Amritpal Singh owned many other unauthorised buildings in the area and has been a “registered bad character” of Shakarpur police station for the last 20 years.
Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit on Tuesday visited the spot and also met the relatives of those injured. She also announced an ex-gratia payment of `2 lakhs to the next of kin of each of the deceased, `1 lakh for the families of minors who died and `50,000 for those injured. A magisterial inquiry into the incident by deputy commissioner (revenue), East, has also been ordered. The report will be submitted in 10 days. The inquiry will look into aspects like the construction of the building, proper permission taken by the agency concerned, security lapses and the role of the owner of the building. While maintaining that the guilty should not be spared, Ms Dikshit hinted that it was the MCD‘s job to ensure that buildings were constructed as per law. The CM also directed the divisional commissioner to evacuate the houses adjacent to the building and carry out a safety-related assessment.
Municipal commissioner K.S. Mehra has directed the MCD chief vigilance officer to conduct an internal inquiry and submit a comprehensive report within four days. Though blaming the Delhi government’s flood and irrigation department for failure to channel out the water from the basements, the MCD conceded that the area where the incident occurred was an unauthorised regularised colony where the civic body is supposed to provide basic amenities.
Conceding that “due to the constantly increasing demand for residential accommodation structural safety aspects have often been the casualty”, Lt.-Gov. Tejendra Khanna said there was a need for structural safety assessments of all houses along the Yamuna bank. He directed the MCD, along with the Delhi Disaster Management Authority, to get a team of experts from the Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee, to carry out the survey of all the houses in Shahdara zone. On Tuesday, relatives of the deceased and the injured were still searching for them. With more than 60 people of one village from Katihar district of Bihar dying, their friends are wondering how to take their bodies home.