5 of firm held for Noida lift crash

Noida, December 23

Five employees of a co-working space provider were arrested on Saturday for alleged negligence that led to a lift crash, which resulted in injuries to nine staffers of an IT firm, the police said.

The lift crash occurred on Friday evening, when nine employees of Erasmith Technologies were in the elevator at the River Side Tower, an office leasing-out complex, in Sector 125 of Noida. It had a sudden free fall from the eighth floor to the basement of the building, they said.

“An FIR was lodged in the case at the local police station and five people have been arrested. Investigation is underway and more people could be arrested if their role comes to light for negligence in the lift crash,” Additional DCP (Noida) Manish Kumar Mishra said.

He said of the nine injured, two were discharged from the hospital soon after while others were also stable and out of danger.

The arrested persons have been identified as Mohit Pant, Abhineet Mathur, Ramesh Chandra, Neetu Chandna Bisht and Shraddha Thapa. All of them are employees of co-working space provider Awfis, according to the police.

According to the FIR, an employee of Erasmith Technologies claimed that Awfis had been informed about lift malfunction in the past, yet the issue was not resolved.

“The owner and employees of Awfis company were repeatedly told that the lift was faulty and any person could die or get seriously injured. But the owner and employees of Awfis did not pay any attention to our complaint,” the complainant said.

He alleged that security arrangements and standards were not followed by Awfis company, which is also responsible for the safe operations of the lift.

The FIR has been registered under IPC sections 287 (negligent conduct with respect to machinery), 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide) and 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt) against Awfis employees, the police said.