Breadwinners, workers, neighbours: The 10 lives cut short in the Bhiwandi building collapse

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Three relatives who never returned home

Ashok Paswan, Mukesh Paswan and Rakesh Paswan, members of the same extended family, were among the labourers carrying out repair work inside the building.

Ashok Paswan

For hours, their families had no idea what had happened.

“I knew my husband Ashok, his brother Rakesh and his aunt’s son Mukesh had gone to work on a building. When Ashok didn’t return home that night, I kept calling him but there was no answer,” said Seema Paswan, Ashok’s wife.

It was only the next morning, after relatives learnt of the collapse, that they rushed to the site and later to Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital, where Seema identified Ashok’s and Rakesh’s bodies.

Ashok, the sole breadwinner for his family of five, had moved to Bhiwandi from Gonda in Uttar Pradesh nearly five years ago with Rakesh and Mukesh in search of work.

He went to help a friend move out

Shameem Ansari, a barber, lived in a neighbouring building.

Shameem Ansari

When Kohinoor building was declared unsafe, he went inside to help a friend shift belongings into his own nearby home.

“Within five minutes of entering, the building collapsed. His friend escaped, but Shameem could not,” said his uncle, Mansoor Ahmed Ansari.

Ansari leaves behind his wife, mother and four children. Originally from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, he worked in Bhiwandi while his family stayed in their village. He was their only earning member.

He had already moved out

Santosh Pandey had evacuated his flat two days before the collapse and had been staying in his canteen because the building had become unsafe. On Thursday night, he returned to check on the repair work.

“Santosh owned two flats in the building, on the third and fourth floors. He wanted to see how the repairs were progressing,” said his relative Sanjay Tiwari.

Pandey is survived by three children and other family members in Varanasi.

“At least they were not here when it happened,” his uncle Nandlal Pandey said. “But now they have lost the person who supported the family.”

They stepped out after hearing a loud sound

Ranjit Singh and his friend Radhe Shyam Kushwah were in the building’s second wing when they heard a loud thud.

Ranjit Singh

Singh went downstairs to see what had happened. “He asked me to stay inside and went out to check,” said his wife, Neha Singh. “He was my entire world.” Within minutes, the building collapsed.

Originally from Allahabad, Singh worked as a manager. Kushwah, who had lived in Bhiwandi for nearly two decades, worked in the town’s textile industry. His family lived in Allahabad while he stayed alone in Bhiwandi.

“We spoke to him that evening. Later we heard about the collapse,” said his son Krishna, who travelled from Pune to identify his father’s body. The family plans to take his remains to Allahabad for the last rites.

A new job ended in tragedy

Krishna Kumar had moved to Bhiwandi only three months ago after leaving a job at a mushroom farm in Pune.

Originally from Uttar Pradesh’s Balrampur district, he was working as a labourer on the repair work when the building collapsed.

“He came here because he found a better-paying job,” said his brother-in-law, Pawan Kumar. He leaves behind his wife, two sons and three brothers.

The last man to be found

Shyamji Pal was the final victim to be pulled from the rubble on Friday evening.

Shyamji Pal

A vegetable vendor, Pal had just returned from attending a funeral and finished dinner when he heard the commotion outside.

He told his family he would step downstairs to see what had happened. Minutes later, the building collapsed.

Pal is survived by his wife and two sons. One is a third-year IT student and the other works as a medical representative.

His sons, who were away when the building fell, spent the day searching hospitals and the collapse site before learning late Friday evening that their father had died.