Woman leaps to her death before demolition drive

PUNE: A 35-year-old

woman

jumped to her death from the fourth floor of an illegal building in

Pimple Gurav

when employees of the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (

PCMC

) turned up there to tear down the structure as part of its

demolition

drive.

Though the police has not confirmed this yet, it was learnt that the woman, Devi Pawar, was living in the building, Devkar Park, with her husband and two children.

Ayubkhan Pathan, joint city engineer and chief of the building permissions department, said in a statement that residents opposed to the demolition had gathered on the terrace of the building and the police were appealing to them to come down.

“Our team with all its machinery had just reached the spot. At around 12.30pm, Pawar, who was among the people on the terrace, suddenly jumped down. An ambulance was called and she was taken to the Aundh hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries,” Pathan said.

The four-storied building is owned by Santosh Devkar, Ram Pawar and Nikhil Jagdale, Pathan said, adding that construction work was in progress when the team reached there.

Late in the night, officials from the Sangvi police station told TOI that it was yet to be confirmed if the woman was a resident of the building.

In his statement, Pathan said local residents had an altercation with the demolition team when it arrived to tear down the building. A group of around five people pelted stones and damaged two excavators. A strong police bandobast was maintained in the area after Pawar’s death. Tight security was also maintained at the Aundh hospital, where a big crowd had gathered. Security was also beefed up at the PCMC main building around 3pm as there were reports that Pawar’s relatives were planning to bring her body there.

Sources said Pawar’s family is involved in construction work. There are 10 flats in the illegal building but it was not known how many of them were occupied.

On April 15 last year, the PCMC had sent a legal notice under sections 478(1) and 433(c) of the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act to Devkar, Pawar and Jagdale for unauthorisedly constructing the building. The building was under the scanner during an earlier demolition drive too. In spite of that, the construction work had continued.

Pimpri Chinchwad mayor Nitin Kalje and PCMC chairperson Seema Savale refused to comment on the issue. Eknath Pawar, ruling party leader in the PCMC, said, “Action will be taken after an inquiry is conducted against the officials whose negligence resulted in the unauthorised constructions.”