The family of five brothers had gathered at Meetha Lal's home at Mangar basti in Hyderabad on Thursday night to discuss the marriage prospects of a relative. A little after 9.30 pm, the family heard the sound of kitchen utensils clanging.
“I thought a cat was knocking down the utensils,” says KS Gabbar, who along with a few others members of the family, rushed inside. To their shock, they found a portion of the wall that separated the washroom and the hall had caved, falling on five unsuspecting children who were sleeping.
Gabbar's two daughters Geetha and Latha had a miraculous escape, but his brother's three children — Roshni (6), Saarika (3) and two-month-old Pavani did not survive. “Pavani died on the spot. The two other children died on the way to the hospital,” Gabbar says, standing in front of the mortuary at Osmania General Hospital.
Neighbours and relatives gather outside the house to mourn the deaths of the children
“We haven’t told the parents yet. None of us have the courage. But with everyone chanting prayers, they would have figured out by now,” says Gabbar.
Meetha Lal and his wife Seema were just recovering from the loss of one of their four children, who died in 2018. “Their son died of fever in 2018. Now, all their children are gone, all four,” Gabbar says.
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Mangar Basti is not located in any upscale part of Hyderabad. Every year during monsoon, homes here get flooded. "The houses are really old and there is no maintenance,” says K Prithviraj, a neighbour. "In 2001, there was a similar incident where five members of a family were killed when a wall collapsed. Back then, Chandrababu Naidu, who was the Chief Minister, had visited our basti,” he adds.
According to residents, there are about 750 houses in the locality
About 200 of those houses were built in the 1980s under the Indira Awaz Yojana housing scheme by the Centre, and the rest were built as part of housing schemes after 1995, when the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) was in power. The contracts for these housing schemes were issued in bulk.
These houses have been neglected for many years, but residents also claim that houses built after 1995 were of poor quality. “It was only when the plasters came off that I realised the contractor who built my house has used 8 mm rods for the roof, whereas he should have used 12 mm rods,” says Srikanth, who has worked in construction earlier. “I had even collected evidence, but all the papers got ruined when it flooded," he says.
The housing scheme was carried forward by subsequent governments in Andhra Pradesh, and after bifurcation of the two Telugu states in 2014, by the present Telangana government.
In 2015, residents of the basti were promised houses under the 2BHK housing scheme by the Telangana government. “They issued us a notice asking us to vacate as the houses we stay in are weak. They said that the houses will be built in the basti itself. They laid the foundation stone, but nothing has happened since then. We went and met the Collector and every other official we could, but since then, there has been no word about the houses,” he adds.
Residents gathered before the Osmania mortuary to collect the bodies with Gabbar, but they don’t know who is to blame for the poor infrastructure. They wait for the state government to keep its promise.
All pictures by arrangement.