Dharwad building collapse: 7 officers suspended for dereliction of duty

Dharwad, Mar 23: Urban Development department suspended seven officers for dereliction of duty in connection with 5-storey building collapse in Dhrwad which claimed 16 lives so far.

Rescue operations continues for 5th day at building collapse site on Saturday. NDRF and other agencies have rescued total of 61 people and have extracted 16 bodies from the debris.

According to reports, it is being suspected that at least seven people are still under the debris.

Karnataka: Latest visuals from the site of #DharwadBuildingCollapse where rescue operations have been going on for more than 72 hours. The death toll has risen to 15. pic.twitter.com/Tk0p2GRCmH

— ANI (@ANI) March 23, 2019

Four owners of the under-construction building that collapsed surrendered to cops on Friday, three days after the tragedy. Former Karnataka minister and Congress leader from the region Vinay Kulkarni had said on Tuesday that one of the partners in the building was his relative and that whoever was involved should face action.

According to reports, one of the building owner Basavaraj blamed an engineer for the tragedy. Also, police arrested the engineer, Vivek Pawar, from a lodge in Kolhapur, Maharashtra.

A case has been filed under section 304 (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC against the owners of the building and a special team will be constituted to investigate the case and arrest the culprits.