Three aspiring civil servants drowned on Saturday night in the unauthorised basement library of a premier coaching institute, apparently trapped by flash floods, prompting student protests on the streets and a blame game between political parties.

The Delhi fire services, National Disaster Response Force, and the police rescued more than a dozen other people from the institute, Rau’s IAS Study Circle, in Old Rajinder Nagar. They also recovered the bodies of Shreya Yadav (25) of Uttar Pradesh, Tanya Soni (25) of Telangana, and Nevin Dalvin (28) of Kerala.

“When we reached there, we saw that the basement was filled with water and the level of (water on the) road and basement had become equal,” fire services director Atul Garg said.

“Only when the water on the road reduced, dewatering and pumping out (of) the water began. Three dead bodies were recovered. The building had been given a fire NOC (no-objection certificate) with the basement to be used for storage and parking. The owner misused it. We will take action against them and we will now withdraw their NOC.”

The police arrested institute owner Abhishek Gupta and coordinator Deshpal Singh on the charges of negligence and culpable homicide.

Family members of Shreya Yadav, one of the deceased students, mourn at her home at Hasimpur Barsawan village in Uttar Pradesh’s Ambedkar Nagar district on Sunday. PTI picture

The cause of the flash flood is unclear. Forensic teams are reportedly examining the possibility that the gate and other obstructions at the institute’s entrance gave way and water from a flooded road rushed into the underground library.

The Delhi government has ordered a magisterial probe as well. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has ordered an audit of all coaching centres and action against any municipal employee responsible for negligence.

The Aam Aadmi Party, which runs the civic body and the Delhi government, and the BJP, which has overarching powers in Delhi through the lieutenant governor (LG), blamed each other.

The BJP alleged the AAP’s failure to desilt drains had led to the disaster.

New Delhi MP Bansuri Swaraj of the BJP said: “For the past one week, locals here were urging AAP MLA Durgesh Pathak to get the drain here cleaned. However, Durgesh Pathak didn’t listen…. Arvind Kejriwal, Durgesh Pathak and the AAP government are entirely responsible for this incident.”

AAP minister Saurabh Bharadwaj tweeted the video of a purported meeting with chief secretary Naresh Kumar and other officials last month and said: “Everyone is saying that the work of removing silt from drains and sewers in Delhi was not done properly. Due to this, there was waterlogging in the entire Delhi....”

He added: “The government can neither transfer these officers nor take any action against them. Only LG sahab can take action.”

Lieutenant governor V.K. Saxena said in a statement: “These incidents clearly point towards criminal neglect and failure of basic maintenance and administration by concerned agencies and departments. Drainage in the city and related infrastructure, as also required efforts and endeavours to address these have apparently collapsed. It is indicative of the larger malaise of misgovernance that Delhi has been subjected to during the last decade or so.”

Mayor Shelly Oberoi later announced that several coaching centres running from Rajinder Nagar basements — a violation of municipal safety norms — had been sealed on Sunday.

The police had to forcibly remove students who had blocked the road close to the Karol Bagh Metro station nearby, demanding an explanation from municipal commissioner Ashwani Kumar.

Some civil service aspirants also heckled rebel AAP parliamentarian Swati Maliwal and Delhi Congress president Devender Yadav who visited the area, asking them not to “play politics”.

Another civil service aspirant was electrocuted in a large puddle in North Delhi earlier this month. Last year, a blaze at a coaching institute injured several students.

The RSS-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad protested outside mayor Oberoi’s residence; the Congress’s National Students Union of India held a candlelight vigil near the watery grave of the hapless students; and the CPIML Liberation’s All India Students Association staged a sit-in there. CPM parliamentarian V. Sivadasan and an SFI delegation joined the students protesting near the coaching centre.

Dalvin, who was from Ernakulam in Kerala, was a student of JNU’s school of arts and aesthetics.

JNU students’ union president Dhananjay Kumar said: “This must not be viewed as a standalone incident, the free reins granted to private coaching mafia emboldens institutions to forgo safety regulations in favour of large profits…. The government has made no attempts to bring this open loot under control despite repeated and regular instances of (the) loss of lives.”

The leader of the Lok Sabha Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, tweeted: “This collapse of infrastructure is a collective failure of the system. The common citizen is paying the price of unsafe construction, poor town planning and irresponsibility of institutions at every level by losing their lives.”