Kalyan building collapse: Flat owner ran repairs in structure declared unfit to live in

Court remands flat owner to 5-day police custody; KDMC chief forms committee to investigate if the building was illegal

- Anamika Gharat

THANE: A Kalyan magistrate court remanded Krushna Chaurasiya, owner of the fourth-floor apartment in the four-storeyed Shri Saptashrungi building, in Kalyan East, to five days police custody on Wednesday. Chaurasia was arrested on Tuesday night by Kolsewadi police, on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, after the floor of his apartment caved in resulting in the successive collapse of the third and second floors, which led to the deaths of six people and left six others injured, earlier in the afternoon.

According to police officials, Chaurasiya, who owns a small paan shop in the neighbourhood, had ordered renovations in his house despite the 30-year-old building being declared "dangerous to live in" recently by the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC), and the municipal commissioner Abhinav Goel ordering officials of the J-Ward to carry out its structural audit immediately.