Lift collapse in Gummidipoondi: 3 held, hunt on Jayakumar's daughter

CHENNAI: A day after the death of a Class 11 boy in elevator collapse in Gummidipoondi, Tiruvallur police arrested three persons apart from booking former AIADMK minister Jayakumar's daughter Jayapriya, one of the owners of the wedding hall where the mishap took place.

While Jayapriya is absconding, the arrested were identified as D Thirunavukarasu (32) of Kandigai (supervisor of the hall), S Kakkan (23) of Pulianthope (in-charge of lift operation) and B Venkatesan (40) of Periyapullapuram (the hall manager).

Police said that the lift was meant to carry food items and not people as it was set up as a temporary structure when the wedding was built in 2015. According to police, the lift had a carrying capacity of just 300 kgs, but there were three people apart from huge containers of food on the day of accident, resulting in snapping of cables.

The deceased Sheetal of Wallajabad, a Class 11 student, worked in part-time to a wedding caterer who took up the order for the marriage at the wedding hall in Pethikuppam near Gummidipoondi.

The incident happened around 8pm, when Sheetal and two others boarded the lift from the ground floor to reach the second floor to deliver biriyani to the dining hall. When the lift was about to reach the second floor, suddenly the lift wire snapped and the car fell on the ground. In the impact Sheetal's head smashed on the steel structure surrounding the elevator and he died on the spot. Two other people - Vignesh (21)and Jeyaraman, (25) - are seriously injured, said police. The Gummidipoondi Sipcot police registered a case for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.