A night searching hospitals, a morning of grief: Delhi hostel collapse leaves families broken

On Monday morning, the family was told that Pawan, 21, a student at Delhi University’s Motilal Nehru (Evening) College, had succumbed to his injuries.

He and four other DU students were among the seven killed when a five-storey building housing a private hostel collapsed in Satya Niketan on Sunday.

Sitting next to Priyanshi, his friend Anjali said, “Yesterday, we were looking for him. The whole night, no information was given to us. This morning, Pawan’s father got a call and was told he is no more.”

The family, she said, was now taking his body home to Uttar Pradesh for the last rites.

A few metres away, another family shared the same pain.

Akshat Singh, 20, a BCom student at PGDAV College, had died of head injuries.

“He was brought in last evening. We informed his family in Katni, Madhya Pradesh, and told them he’d been hurt,” said Mohit, his friend and batchmate.

“They arrived this morning, some by car, some by taxi.”

By 2 pm, 15 of Akshat’s relatives had gathered outside the AIIMS mortuary — some sat on the footpath, others stood in small, quiet clusters.

His sisters and aunts had brought apples and fruit for him to eat once he recovered. His uncle carried bags and jholas packed with clothes.

“We had planned a long visit, to get our son treated and take him home in good health,” his uncle Sonu said. “I did not know we would be taking him back in a steel coffin.”

Once the coffin was loaded into the ambulance, his sisters and aunts climbed in after it. His father sat right beside it, a brown jhola in his lap holding the hospital’s release papers, his eyes fixed on the refrigerated steel coffin and nothing else.

His aunt sat to his left, his younger sister beside her, staring out of the window.

Before the ambulance pulled away, Sonu placed packs of water bottles and biscuits inside — enough, he hoped, for the 15-hour journey back to Katni.

‘I know he is not dead’

In front of AIIMS Trauma Centre, a mother sobbed as a relative held her tight.

This was Pushpa Jaj, whose 18-year-old son Arpit was killed in the collapse. He was a second-year B.Com Programme student at Atma Ram Santan Dharma College, a stone’s throw from the hostel.

Pushpa said she regretted sending her son to Delhi. “I should not have let him come. Today, he would have been with me here.”

Arpit would have turned 19 on October 11. “He was still a child. When he came home, he would stand beside me in the kitchen and talk for hours,” she recalled.

Pushpa last saw her son on September 5. “I hugged him before he boarded a train from Dewas (in Madhya Pradesh). I had asked him to stay back for a day more, but his tickets were booked two months in advance,” she said. “I had packed him aloo parantha for the journey.”

Pushpa said he reached his PG around 9 on Sunday and told her he was going to sleep. “Around noon, I video called him after I came back from the temple… he said he missed me… we spoke for a bit before he said he’d go have lunch,” she said.

Around 2 pm, Arpit’s friend called the family and said the five-floor PG had collapsed. Four from the family immediately drove to Bhopal, took a flight and reached Delhi at 7 pm.

Arpit’s body was identified around 10 am on Monday. “The rakhi he was wearing wasn’t there. His face was battered. I couldn’t look at him for even a second. But I did see a mole on the left side of his chest. I have a similar mole,” Pushpa said.

She said Arpit had wanted to build a career and provide a better life for his family. “The college did not have a hostel facility… so we shifted him to this PG,” she said.

“… I still don’t know if that body was of my son. How can they expect us to identify him when he wasn’t wearing any jewellery?” she said.

“Vo aata tha aur mujhe pappi de deta tha. Main kaise vishwas kar loon ki vo yahan nahi hai? (He would come home and give me a kiss. How can I believe that he is no longer here?) I know that he is not dead,” she wept.

A relative said the family has decided to donate Arpit’s corneas. “His father decided to donate his corneas… kisi ko ek nayi roshni mil jaayegi (someone else will be able to see)… so he made the decision,” the relative added.

The body of Yuvraj Soni, a second-year student of Motilal Nehru College (Evening), was recovered from the rubble on Sunday evening. Soon after his family arrived in Delhi, Yuvraj’s father, Kanhaiya Soni, took ill.

On Monday afternoon, the family was trying to figure out how to take the body back to their home in Durg in Chattisgarh. “A drive in an ambulance might take 15 hours. I don’t know whether Yuvraj’s father would be able to take the strain,” a friend said.

Yuvraj, the only son of his parents, had moved to Delhi a year ago with the dream of becoming a chartered accountant, members of the family in Chhattisgarh told The Indian Express. He was a hardworking student who had cleared the CA Foundation examination in January, a close friend and batchmate said.

“After college, we would often go to Qutub Minar and then eat outside. I’ll miss him,” said the friend.