Shimla: Five persons have been arrested for construction of a poor quality boundary wall in a primary school in Una district that collapsed because of high speed wind and killed 4 children and left one injured seriously, education minister Ishwar Dass Dhiman let the Vidhan Sabha know today.
Responding to a call attention motion raised by senior congress leader Kaul Singh Thakur on the opening day of the budget session here, the minister said that following the wall collapse on 7 February, 2011, a case had been registered against the village education committee of Chattarpur Dada primary school that had entrusted the task of constructing the boundary wall.
After investigations, police on Sunday arrested five persons in connection with the tragedy in which a magisterial enquiry had found that poor quality of construction as the reason for the wall collapse.
The education department has been asked to proceed against persons held accountable for accident, he added.
The minister also let the house know that following the tragedy, the government had asked the education department to get a early survey conducted of all unsafe school building in the state. “We have received the report and suitable action will be taken soon, he said.
Earlier, congressman Kaul Singh had pointed out that the education department lacked technical wherewithal to supervise over quality of constructions and more than one incident of school boundary walls having collapsed recently had been reported in the media.
Five school children, aged 7 to 11, who took shelter against the wall on February 7, to let a passing brick laden truck pass by were buried after high speed winds led to collapse of 21 meters of the boundary wall at the Chattarpur government elementary school, killing 4 of them on the spot.
Dhiman said that the fifth child had been operated upon at PGI Chandigarh and was recovering. All medical expenses are being borne by the government he added.
Una police informed that the five persons arrested include, Satosh Kaur, the school headmistress during whose tenure the wall was raised two years ago, Sandeep Thakur, the junior engineer under whose supervision the construction took place and Rakesh Kumar, Surindra Kumar and Bakshi Ram, who were members of the school committee.
They had been booked under IPC sections 304 A, 336, 338, 420 and 120 B. The construction material has been sent for quality examination and the report was awaited.
As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads a team of media professionals at Hill Post.
Spanning a career of over two decades in mass communication, as a Documentary Filmmaker, TV journalist, Print Media journalist and with Online & Social Media, he brings with him a vast experience. He lives in Shimla.
