Woman dies in chawl wall collapse

While Gajanan escaped with minor injuries because he was sleeping under the iron bed, his mother however failed to survive the accident. He was treated at the Shastri Nagar hospital and discharged in the afternoon.

“It was only destiny that my father escaped because he had left for Solapur only yesterday,” said Mohan Kulpe, the elder son who stays with his wife in a neighbouring chawl.

Nearly 70 families are now living under constant fear wondering whose tenement will be next to give in. “This is not an accidental death like the landlord would have everyone believe,” said a resident L D Prajapati whois scared that he will be the next victim since he shares a wall with the tenement which crashed today. According to him the landlord R D Shah and his cousin and developer Jetha Shah are to blame for the death.

From 1990 the landlord and the tenants have been on the warpath as Shah is determined to give away the land to Tejpal Nagari – a private housing complex coming up behind the chawls, Prajapati said. The neighbouring plot which also belonged to R D Shah is being developed by Rajshri Builders, owned by Jetha Shah.

“He offered us Rs 30,000 each as compensation in spite of the fact that every family has stayed here for over 25 years,” informs Mohan asking, “Tell me who will sell us even small homes like these for Rs 30,000?”

The chawls, built of brick and mud, had developed cracks along its walls.“Shah does not allow us to undertake repairs nor does he do it himself,” complained Prajapati. Of the residents ten had given in to the landlord’s pressure and accepted the deal. Their rooms wereimmediately pulled down leaving the neighbouring rooms shaken without any support. Kulpe’s room too has no support on its sides.

While R D Shah was missing fearing the chawl residents’ wrath, his brother Naresh Shah said, “It’s our land and they should have left when we asked them to.” He shrugged off any responsibility saying, “We have no money or interest in repairing these structures which are bringing in no returns.”

All the senior officials of the Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation, including Commissioner Madhukar Kokate, his deputy incharge of Kalyan division S R Pawar and ward officer K S Chavan visited the chawl. Pawar ruled out any compensation to the survivors of the collapse. “It happened between two private parties. So how is the KDMC concerned?” he said. He, however, could not say why the corporation had given sanction to the housing complex in spite of the landlord-tenant dispute not being settled.

Meanwhile, in another incident the entire staircase of a residential building inThakurli came crashing down spreading panic among the residents.

While the Dombivli fire brigade helped evict four families staying in the building Sharda Niwas, the KDMC has not been able to help affected residents. The corporation had recently a disaster management cell. However, the rains have made relief work more difficult.