JOIN USThe city police are yet to arrest the engineers, contractors and three owners of the two buildings that collapsed in Cooke Town, East Bengaluru, in the early hours of Wednesday.
Five people, including a four-year-old girl, were killed when the two adjacent four-storey buildings slumped one after another, crushing those sleeping on the ground floor. Four others were rescued from beneath the debris. Two labourers and a security guard and his family were among the dead when the two buildings — one residential and the other under-construction — collapsed at Hutchins Road.
The Pulakeshinagar police had booked the three owners — Mohammed Saheb Amir, Mohammed Imtiaz, and Pratap Rudrani, engineers and contractors under IPC 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder). But as the city police personnel were busy with providing security cover for the MLAs, they are yet to make any arrests.
Ravikumar, assistant executive engineer, Maruthi Sevanagar sub division, told DH: "The demolition of the shrunk and tilted buildings will go on for five to six days as it is a densely built area. We are using a JCB and the work is moving steadily. Today, we cleared the water tank located in the backyard of the building where the structural fault took place."
"We are also clearing the belongings of residents and handing them over," he added.