Home Ministry to probe coaching centre deaths

AAP, Delhi LG spar over master plan to desilt drains even as IAS aspirant tells CJI about the living hell

The Union Home Ministry on Monday constituted a high level committee, headed by an Additional Secretary, to probe the death of three IAS aspirants at a coaching centre due to flooding of the building's basement. Its report is to be submitted in thirty days.

The committee will inquire into the reasons, fix responsibility, suggest measures and recommend policy changes, a ministry spokesperson said.

The decision to set up the committee came even as both Houses of Parliament took up a special discussion on the drowning. Preliminary investigation suggests a malfunction in the biometric doors prevented them from leaving the basement.

There was much din with the BJP accusing the Aam Aadmi Party, which has a government in Delhi and also rules over the municipal corporation, of criminal negligence; the AAP, in turn, tried to deflect the blame by raising generic questions on the use of basements in the area.

As charges flew thick and fast, sources told news agency PTI that a proposal for a unified authority to desilt and manage 18 main drains emptying into the Yamuna River had been pending with Saurabh Bhardwaj, Delhi's Flood Control Minister, since August last year.