Basement deaths: "How can I be blamed for the incident?" — Delhi court reserves order on bail plea of SUV driver

Today, Tuesday, July 30, a court in New Delhi, reserved its order on the bail plea of an SUV driver who was arrested in connection with the flooding of a coaching centre's basement in the Old Rajender Nagar area, which further led to the death of three Civil Services aspirants. This was stated in a report by PTI.

Judicial Magistrate Vinod Kumar reserved the order on the bail plea of Manuj Kathuria.

Kathuria has been accused of driving his Force Gurkha car through the street that was flooded with rainwater, causing the water to swell and breach the gates of the three-storey building and inundate the basement.

Furthermore, Kathuria's counsel sought his bail, saying he did not know about what was going to happen, or his intention to cause the incident.

Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) Atul Srivastava opposed the bail plea, saying Kathuria was not guilty of "contributory negligence", but he aggravated the incident.

Following this, the APP played in court a few videos taken from Kathuria's social media accounts, showing him driving the same SUV, and said, "I am sorry to use this term. But he is mastikhor aur masti mein inhone ye sab kar diya. In having fun he caused the incident."

The public prosecutor said the police investigation is still in a nascent stage and the accused, if let out on bail, may influence witnesses.

Kathuria's counsel argued, "The Delhi Police is arresting people not related to the case; how can I be blamed for the incident?"

In a similar line of news, today July 30, a few protesting students asked the Delhi Government to increase the compensation amount to be given to the next of kin of the deceased.

They want the compensation to be in the range of Rs 1 crore to Rs 5 crore each for the families of the three UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) aspirants who died in the July 27 incident, as against the Rs 10 lakh promised by the Delhi Government.