Four people, including two children, have died and eight others have been injured after a building collapsed near the Idgah in Machhli Mandi, New Seemapuri, in northeast Delhi, with police completing rescue operations and opening a negligence investigation.
The building collapsed on Wednesday afternoon, and the death toll rose to four on Thursday, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) Rajendra Prasad Meena said. Eight people were admitted to hospital for treatment, while police continued the process of identifying recovered remains.
The deceased included Gulafsa, 21, Haza Bibi, 56, and Nusra, 33, according to the police. The identities of two children have not yet been established. One child was estimated to be three or four years old, while the remains of a 12-year-old girl were also recovered from the debris.
“The identification of body parts recovered from the debris is pending and will be established through DNA examination,” Mr. Meena said. He added that the death toll could rise because more body parts had been recovered and were awaiting identification.
The police said rescue operations were completed on Thursday after teams searched the collapsed structure. Family members of the building owner were among those injured, officers said.
A first information report has been registered on the basis of a daily diary entry. The case includes charges of negligence and causing death by negligence. Police said efforts were under way to arrest the owners of the building.
“So far, our focus has been on the rescue operation. We are now intensifying the investigation and trying to arrest the owner responsible for the collapse,” Mr. Meena said.
The collapse has renewed attention on building safety in Delhi, coming about a month after a separate building collapse in Satya Niketan that killed seven people and injured five others. The two incidents have occurred in different parts of the city, but both have placed responsibility for structural safety, building ownership and enforcement under scrutiny.
The immediate investigation in New Seemapuri is expected to establish the condition of the building, whether any unauthorised construction or structural alteration was involved, and whether required safety and maintenance obligations were followed. The police statement released so far has not provided details on the building’s age, ownership records, approvals or the cause of the collapse.
The Aam Aadmi Party criticised the Delhi government after the incident. A delegation led by the party’s Delhi unit president, Saurabh Bharadwaj, visited injured people at the hospital and demanded strict action against those responsible. Mr. Bharadwaj described the incident as a failure of the government and alleged that senior government representatives had not visited the site.
Those political allegations were not independently established in the report. The police investigation and identification of the deceased remain the immediate official processes following the collapse.
Police said the next steps include completing the identification of the recovered remains through DNA examination, intensifying efforts to arrest the building owners and continuing the investigation into alleged negligence.
