Video Editor: Rahul Sanpui
"I couldn't even sleep at my home for one night," laments Sangeeta, her eyes fixed at the swing on the balcony of her dream home in Gurugram's Chintels Paradiso.
The 45-year-old homemaker's family had just conducted a house warming ceremony on 7 February. Two days later, when they had almost finished setting-up the house on the eight floor, Sangeeta heard a sudden thud.
Unaware of what had happened, she spent the next few minutes in panic, as she took a risky journey on the elevator. It was only after reaching the ground floor that Sangeeta realised that the living room of the sixth floor had collapsed all the way to the first.
It was a such a horrific collapse that two residents of D Block—one of the eight towers at Chintels—passed away after being buried alive under the rubble. Residents allege that while the flats were of sub-standard quality, repairs being carried out by the developer on the sixth floor were done without providing any support in the floor below.
Meanwhile, in a tweet dated 11 February, Prashant Solomon, managing director of the Chintels group, regretted the incident and claimed that the repairs were being done by a resident of the sixth floor.
Five Towers Now 'Unfit for Living'
The fall of debris, which residents alleged happened due to a combination of factors mentioned above, also meant that Sangeeta could no longer go back to her home, much less sit in the balcony she had decorated with all her heart.
Spanning 18 floors, D block was once home to around 36 families. Although, only the living room roofs of apartments below the sixth floor were impacted, the entire building was evacuated, leaving its residents homeless in a matter of seconds.
Some residents of the tragedy-struck D block have been shifted to empty apartments in other towers—a temporary measure that most are utterly unhappy with.
Shanta Mishra, a school teacher, is one such resident who has been shifted to B block. While Mishra says that the flat lacks basic amenities, two of her children developed fever from the trauma.
"Both have online classes to attend. Since there is no WiFi, their studies have been disrupted. Both have developed fever as they have gone through so much hassle and been exposed to so many people," she adds.
From Fit to Unfit
In July 2021, a portion of the balcony in H Block—one among the four fresh towers to be declared unsafe—had collapsed, following which a safety audit of the five towers was ordered under the watch of Gurugram's Department of Town and Country Planning (DTCP), reported The Indian Express.
While tower E, F, G, H and J were included in the audit conducted by SGR Engineering, a private engineering firm, it is not clear whether tower D, parts of which collapsed on 10 February, was included in the study.
In September 2021, the audit found the five buildings "safe for living".
While residents say this points to a wider nexus, many have openly alleged that sub-standard construction of these buildings was carried out by the Chintels group.
Arguing that if an apartment on the recently-repaired first floor of D block could withhold the debris from the sixth floor, resident Pooja Agarwal claimed that there were issues in the way the building was constructed.
"Look at the 1st floor. They had already repaired the base of that floor and the debris couldn't pass through it. This means that there's a problem in the way our building was constructed."Pooja Agarwal
Echoing Agarwal, Mishra said that while the developer had taken full payment from the buyers, it had actually left them to die in these apartments by constructing poor-quality apartments.
"Most of us are demanding that our flats be bought back. Whatever we have paid for the flat should be given to us and we will leave this place. We are staying here because we have to fight for our rights," she said.
While DTCP has said that Chintels would bear the cost of rehabilitation of affected families, residents of Chintels Paradiso have called for a CBI probe into the incident, along with the arrest of all those involved.
(Chintels has not responded to an e-mail sent by this reporter to its Chairman and Managing Director. Gurugram District Town Planner, RS Bhatt, hasn't responded to multiple calls and messages as well. This story will be updated if a response is from either parties.)
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