Pune, June 29: The police on Saturday registered an FIR against eight people in connection with the Pune wall collapse incident in which 15 labourers from Bihar lost their lives. Those named in the FIR include top officials of Kanchan Builders and Alcon Stylus, their engineers and contractors. Two accused were also arrested by the police.

The accused include Jagdishprasad Agrawal, Sachin Jagdishprasad Agrawal, Rajesh Jagdishprasad Agrawal, Vivek Sunil Agrawal, Vipul Sunil Agrawal, Pankaj Vora, Suresh Shah and Rashmikant Gandhi. They are booked under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Pune Wall Collapse: All 15 Deceased Were From Bihar, CM Devendra Fadnavis, NDRF Announce Compensation.

"The name of the site where the excavation work was going on is Kanchan Royal Exotica. Vora, Shah and Gandhi are the partners in the project," a police officer was quoted by PTI as saying. The victims and their family members were living in the makeshift shelters at the site of the under-construction residential project — Kanchan Royal Exotica — where deep excavation work was underway.

A portion of a 22-ft high compound wall of a housing society — Alcon Stylus — caved in and came crashing down trapping the labourers still asleep in their huts. Around half a dozen vehicles parked near the compound wall also were dragged down as a portion of the earth caved in and crashed onto the hutments below.

Teams of rescuers managed to rescue just three people alive, including two minors. As many as 15 labourers died in the incident. Some of the victims were identified Sunil Singh, Sonali Das, Bhima Das, Deepan Sharma, Alok Verma, Mohan Sharma, Sangeeta Devi, Neeta, Avdhesh Singh, Aman Sharma, Ravi Sharma, Ajit Sharma, Rahul Sharma, Laxmikant Sahani and Ovi Das.

Maharashtra Revenue Minister Chandrakant Patil announced that the NDRF will give compensation of Rs 4 lakh to families of deceased. The Bihar government has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh for kin of the victims and Rs 50,000 for the injured who hail from the state.

Earlier in the day, Pune Municipal Corporation commissioner Saurabh Rao said it appears that the soil may have loosened due to heavy rain coupled with the excavation work that was carried out “irresponsibly” close to the retaining wall of the housing society. (With agency inputs)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 29, 2019 09:01 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).