Rescuers pulled the body of a 66-year-old man from the concrete debris in central Delhi's Chawri Bazar, pushing the death toll from the three-storey building collapse to seven.
Police identified the latest casualty as Luchhuman Mukhiya, a native of Jakauli in Bihar's Darbhanga district. Medics transferred his remains alongside six other recovered victims to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital for autopsies and legal identification. The structure gave way without warning.
Police investigators moved swiftly against those who ran the site. Officers arrested the building's owner, Saimullah alias Ayub, before launching an interstate manhunt for the construction crew. A Delhi Police team tracked three contractors—identified as Siraj, Tajuddin, and Furkan—to a hideout in Sirohi village in Faridabad, Haryana, where officers took them into custody. All four men reside in the national capital.
Hauz Qazi police station booked the four accused under an FIR dated November 5. Investigators invoked Sections 105, 290, 125(a), and 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), leveling charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, negligent conduct concerning building repair, and acts endangering personal safety.
The multi-storey structure crumpled at 9:50 am on Thursday in Gali Sitara, a dense lane situated yards away from the Chawri Bazaar Metro Station. Initial police inquiries established that the ongoing construction work was entirely unauthorized and carried out in defiance of structural safety norms. Teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Delhi Fire Services, Delhi Police, and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) have spent three straight days clearing the site. Rescuers brought out two bodies on Thursday along with one severely injured survivor, while excavation crews recovered the remaining five victims during continuous operations through Saturday.
Most of the deceased had traveled to the capital as migrant laborers. Five of the dead—Sanjeet Kumar, Pankaj Sharma, Shantu, and Dinesh Sah—hailed from Bihar's Khagaria district, while Kishori Sah migrated from Saharsa. Another victim, Vipin Ram, lived locally in Fazilpur.
Civic heads reacted to the fatal collapse by initiating disciplinary purges. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi suspended its jurisdictional Junior Engineer and Assistant Engineer for failing to flag or halt the illegal works. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta stated that municipal and police probes are actively charting accountability across local administrative desks, with the four arrested accused scheduled for production before a Delhi magistrate for custodial remand.