A night of searching, morning of loss for families of 4 DU students killed in Delhi building collapse

Priyanshi, 19, sat in the garden outside the AIIMS Trauma Centre in Delhi on Monday, still in the same clothes she had been wearing the night before. Her eyes were swollen from crying. Three people stood around her, holding her closely.

Beside her sat her mother, in a black-and-white suit and a black dupatta over her head, her eyes fixed on the lawn. Through Sunday night, Priyanshi looked for her brother Pawan Yadav, going from hospital to hospital — Safdarjung, then Ram Manohar Lohia, then the Army’s RR Hospital — before returning to AIIMS, where she spent the rest of the night on a bench in the waiting area.

He and four other DU students were among the seven killed when a five-storey building housing a private hostel collapsed in Satya Niketan on Sunday. Sitting next to Priyanshi, his friend Anjali said, “Yesterday, we were looking for him.

The whole night, no information was given to us. This morning, Pawan’s father got a call and was told he is no more.” The family, she said, was now taking his body home to Uttar Pradesh for the last rites. A few metres away, another family shared the same pain.

Akshat Singh, 20, a BCom student at PGDAV College, had died of head injuries. “He was brought in last evening. We informed his family in Katni, Madhya Pradesh, and told them he’d been hurt,” said Mohit, his friend and batchmate.

“They arrived this morning, some by car, some by taxi.” By 2 pm, 15 of Akshat’s relatives had gathered outside the AIIMS mortuary — some sat on the footpath, others stood in small, quiet clusters. His sisters and aunts had brought apples and fruit for him to eat once he recovered.

His uncle carried bags and jholas packed with clothes. “We had planned a long visit, to get our son treated and take him home in good health,” his uncle Sonu said. “I did not know we would be taking him back in a steel coffin.” Once the coffin was loaded into the ambulance, his sisters and aunts climbed in after it.

His father sat right beside it, a brown jhola in his lap holding the hospital’s release papers, his eyes fixed on the refrigerated steel coffin and nothing else. His aunt sat to his left, his younger sister beside her, staring out of the window.

Before the ambulance pulled away, Sonu placed packs of water bottles and biscuits inside — enough, he hoped, for the 15-hour journey back to Katni. In front of AIIMS Trauma Centre, a mother sobbed as a relative held her tight.

Pushpa Jaj's son, Arpit, 19, was killed in the collapse. He was a second-year B.Com Programme student at Atma Ram Santan Dharma College, a stone's throw from the hostel.