Hyderabad: Two labourers were killed and around 15 others were injured when an under-construction building collapsed in Hussaini Alam on Saturday morning.
The dead were identified as G. Anandu and J. Venkataiah, both from Mahbubnagar district. Shiva Kumar, Dasharath and Jai Prakash suffered serious injuries.
Police said the Sri Maheshwari Vidyalaya High School was being run from the old building. Due to its poor condition, the school’s owners, the Maheshwari Seva Trust, demolished the old building and started construction of a new building from April.
The ground floor was completed and the slab for the first floor was being laid. The slab work started on Friday at around 11 pm. Around 20 workers including site engineer Shiva Kumar and centering works in-charge Anant Reddy were supervising the work. At around 1.20 am, the slab suddenly collapsed.
“Venkataiah and Anandu got trapped. Three of them suffered severe injuries and are in OGH,” said inspector G. Shyamsundar. Officials said that necessary precautions were not taken by the builder and the load-bearing capacity of the beams was not calculated properly before laying the slab.
GHMC officials said that the building did not have a construction permission. “The feasibility of the structure will be analysed,” said GHMC commissioner Srinivas Reddy.
Police has registered a case against Mahesh-wari Seva Trust trustee Shiva Kumar Bung, builder Ameenuddin, site engineer Shiva Kumar and centering in-charge Anant Reddy.
Construction violated norms
While the GHMC claims that the 1,767 sq.yards land belongs to the government and that the trust had encroached the land and is running a school there illegally, the trust claims that the land was purchased by an NGO from the housing board in the late 60s.
The NGO donated it to the Maheshwari Seva Trust, which is running a school since 1978. The school has around 600 students till Class X. The GHMC said the trust applied for permission to construct a three-floor building but since the land belonged to GHMS the application was rejected in August.
But the trust continued with the illegal construction and a case was registered against them in February. Later, when GHMC staff went to stop construction, one of the trustees Srinivas Bung and his men attacked the staff.
“To go ahead with the construction, the trust got an interim injunction order from the city civil court and the next hearing is on Tuesday. Taking advantage of the continuous holidays they took up the construction resulting in the accident,” an official release from GHMC said. After taking a decision to construct the new building, a land grabbing case was filed by the GHMC.
