Congress leader Sachin Pilot has questioned the state government over the incident of school roof collapse in Jhalawar, Rajasthan. He said that despite having power and resources, negligence was done.
Seven children died and many were injured when the roof of a government school collapsed in Manohar police station area of Jhalawar district on Friday morning.
Sachin Pilot told media, "Yesterday's incident is very painful. If the roof falls on innocent children while studying and 7 die, then it is complete negligence of the government."
He said, "This is criminal negligence, action should be taken against the culprits after investigation."
Questioning Rajasthan's Education Minister Madan Dilawar, he said, "I am sorry that the Education Minister is talking about the previous Congress government. Your government has been in power for one and a half years, you have a double engine. You have all the resources, yet you people were negligent."
Sachin Pilot alleged that despite complaints about the building, no action was taken at the right time.
He said, "Rajasthan government should take decisive action, instead of blaming the previous government."
Collector meets the affected family
On Saturday, Jhalawar Collector Ajay Singh met the family who lost two children in this accident.
Talking to journalists, Ajay Singh said, "The families of the deceased had two demands - first, such an accident should not happen again and second, strict action should be taken against the culprits. Action will be taken wherever there has been a lapse in safety."
The collector said that orders were issued on June 20 itself that classes should not be held in dilapidated school buildings.
He said, "There are about 12-13 such buildings which we had shifted, but we did not get any information from this school."
Ajay Singh further said, "We got the information only after the accident. The things told by the villagers about negligence will be investigated. Whenever we asked the teachers, they did not tell us anything like this. When asked yesterday also, they said that they were not aware of it."