Surat coaching centre owner, 2 builders held

Manas Dasgupta

Ahmedabad, May 25

The toll in the massive fire that engulfed a commercial complex in Surat’s Sarthana area has gone up to 20 with one more student succumbing to injuries in the hospital. The police have arrested the owner of the coaching centre where many students died and two builders of Takshashila Arcade. 

Surat Police Commissioner Satish Sharma said the centre owner, Bhargav Butani, was picked up last night after it was revealed that the person who tried to rescue the students was the main culprit. He was running the institution without any valid licence or fire safety permissions.

Sources said the two builders of the four-storeyed Arcade, Harshul Vekariya and Jignesh Paliwal, were picked up from a farm house on the outskirts of Surat. The Surat Municipal Corporation also suspended two senior officials of the fire department for their alleged negligence in performing fire audit of the commercial building. Sources said Takshashila Arcade was the only commercial building left out in the locality during the building-wise fire safety audit. 

Meanwhile, PM Narendra Modi, who is expected to visit Ahmedabad tomorrow to seek blessings of his mother before starting his second innings, is likely to visit Surat and meet the victims’ families. In another development, the National Human Rights Commission sent a notice to the Gujarat government over the Surat fire tragedy. It observed that mere announcement of compensation to the aggrieved families cannot be a solution to such kind of hazards.