‘No rash driving’: Wife of arrested SUV driver in Old Rajinder Nagar coaching centre deaths

NEW DELHI: Shima Kathuria, wife of one of the accused, Manuj Kathuria, in the Old Rajinder Nagar coaching centre incident, while defending her husband’s innocence, said that there was no rash driving at the time of incident and the video is in front of everyone.

She further raised questions over civic authorities and their ‘negligence’ and labelled the incident as a “failure” of system.

The accused Manuj Kathuria is a businessman and was driving his sports utility vehicle (SUV) through a rain-flooded street in central Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar, allegedly causing water to surge and breach the gates of the three-storey Rau’s IAS Study Circle building, flooding its basement and causing the deaths of three UPSC aspirants.

Shima Kathuria, wife of Manuj Kathuria, said, “This is a completely wrong allegation. It was a painful incident due to which three innocents lost their lives. It is a failure of the system. There was no rash driving, the video is in front of everyone. My husband was not driving at a high speed”.

“My husband was only trying to reach a safe spot. The authorities will figure out who is at fault. Why was the coaching institute owner running a library there when they had a NoC only for storage? When there was severe waterlogging on the roads, police should have cordoned off the roads”, she added.

#WATCH | Delhi: Old Rajinder Nagar coaching centre incident | Shima Kathuria- wife of one of the accused Manuj Kathuria, says “This is a completely wrong allegation. It was a painful incident due to which 3 innocents lost their lives. It is a failure of the system. There was no… pic.twitter.com/1MsNErILWW

— ANI (@ANI) July 30, 2024

Meanwhile, Manuj Kathuria’s counsel Rakesh Malhotra held library operators and civic authorities responsible for the incident. “The negligence is firstly of the person operating a library in that basement. Our second argument was that if there was waterlogging, then the civic authorities were responsible for that”, he said.

“If a person is driving through an area in his vehicle and an unfortunate incident happens in any building, then that person is not liable for that… The right culprits should be arrested in this case to serve justice to the families of the deceased students”, he added.

Meanwhile, Delhi Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar submitted a general inquiry report to Minister Atishi on Tuesday, following the deaths of three UPSC aspirants who drowned in the flooded basement library of a coaching centre in Old Rajinder Nagar. The report was prepared by Superintending Engineer Ajay Kumar Nagpal.

Delhi police arrested seven people so far, including a driver of an SUV vehicle, on Monday in connection with the deaths of three students in basement flooding at a coaching centre in Old Rajinder Nagar.

DCP (Central) M Harshvardhan said that the SUV driver was arrested based on a video that was widely shared on social media platforms, which showed the accused pass by the coaching institute on his vehicle at a very high speed and later the gate of the building was found damaged. The police identified the driver and the vehicle through the CCTV footage of the area.

“Negligence has been established on the part of the arrested driver, who has been arrested in the Old Rajender Nagar case. He was driving the vehicle very fast, due to which the gate of the coaching centre broke. Before he hit the building gate, a street vendor had tried to stop him,” the DCP said.

According to the police, the flow of water towards the institute became faster after the vehicle passed by, flooding its premises. “At the beginning of the video, the gate of the coaching institute was fine, but after the car passed, it broke and fell down. The accused driver has no connection with the coaching owner or the building owner”, DCP Harshvardhan said. (ANI)