The Palike engineers built a 30-foot long, simple, soil-packed masonry wall in the interior of the Freedom Park. They did not provide for drainage to cope with rain water run-off, in the event of a heavy downpour like on Friday.

To hide their inefficiency, the Palike engineers even painted murals on the unstable wall, to give Bangaloreans that feel-good factor.

Lucky to be alive

Indumathi landed up at the Freedom Park as part of her preparations for the thread ceremony of her son but she never knew that misfortune would cast a shadow on her arrangements.

Yet, Indumathi feels lucky even after losing her brand new car to the Freedom Park wall collapse. She is content that she, her husband and son are all safe.

“We have arranged thread ceremony of my son Abhay on May 19 and we had come here for shopping,” said Indumathi. Her husband Sridhar Murthy, who drove the car, parked the vehicle near the Freedom Park wall.

“There was no no-parking sign near the wall, so we parked our vehicle and went to Avenue Road to buy items. We returned only to find our car smashed,” said Indumathi.