Satya Niketan collapse: Contractor arrested, owners remanded

The labour contractor Sanoj has been apprehended in Kasganj, Uttar Pradesh, in connection with the Satya Niketan building collapse in South Campus, Delhi, police confirmed. Property owners Urmila Gupta (75), her husband Hariram Gupta (81), a retired Indian Air Force sergeant, and their son Mahesh Gupta (52) have been arrested. A court has sent Hariram and Urmila to 14-day judicial custody, while Mahesh was remanded to two days of police custody. ADVERTISEMENT Stay connected Make The News Mill your preferred source See more TNM stories when you search for news on Google. Add TNM on Google During the investigation, Mahesh disclosed that he managed the building's maintenance on behalf of his parents. He revealed that the property was leased to the PG operators 'Hostel Daze' in August 2025. Police stated that the building was undergoing significant repair work at the time of the collapse. Mahesh said the basement floor was under repair due to waste accumulation during the rainy season over the previous eight to ten days, and the ground floor was being renovated for a commercial extension. ADVERTISEMENT Mahesh further revealed that the family learned of the collapse from local residents and, fearing legal action, fled their residence to take refuge at his in-laws' house in Bhiwadi, Rajasthan. The building collapse on September 6 resulted in seven deaths and numerous injuries. Earlier, the Supreme Court indicated it would examine the Satya Niketan collapse incident on a pan-India basis. The case has been listed for a hearing on Thursday before a bench of Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and R. Mahadevan. ADVERTISEMENT Senior advocate Ajit Sinha, the Court-appointed amicus curiae in a related matter on regulatory compliance for illegal buildings across India, highlighted the significance of the incident, noting that Satya Niketan had experienced another building collapse in April 2022, which caused two deaths and four injuries. 'The present incident is also required to be viewed in the context of an earlier building collapse in Satya Niketan in April 2022, in which two persons lost their lives, and four others were injured. The recurrence of such an incident in the same locality raises serious concerns regarding the effectiveness of the existing mechanism for inspection, identification of dangerous structures and enforcement of building bye-laws,' the amicus report stated. The report also noted that construction-related work was ongoing in or around the basement and that there were reports of waterlogging in the basement immediately before the collapse.