Mother, son hurt in ceiling slab collapse at Bandra colony

A nine-year-old boy and his mother were injured when part of a slab of their house collapsed on them early on Thursday morning in Bandra. The residents of Government Colony said the incident took place around 4.30am when the duo was asleep. Both were rushed to the nearby Bhabha Hospital.

The injured, Nathal Sawant, 9, and Vaishali Yogesh Sawant, 30, had come to visit the latter's ailing mother and were supposed to return home on Thursday. Little did they dream that they would end up in a hospital before they even woke up.

A doctor said mother and son had sustained minor injuries and described their condition as stable. “Vaishali's right hand was trapped under a slab, and she required 16 stitches while Nathal has sustained stomach trauma,” the doctor said.

He added that a similar incident had been reported from the colony three months ago, when a slab fell on two children, aged 12 and 7. The seven-year-old had received nine stitches.

The Government Colony, spread over 99 acres of land, has been in a dilapidated condition for years. The Public Works Department has turned a deaf ear to complaints over the years. Two weeks ago, the Maharahtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray met authorities who promised to look into the matter. After the Thursday incident, MNS workers held a protest outside the office of the Public Works Department (PWD). Officials visited the spot late in the afternoon and promised to repair the rooms within a month.

Manoj Bapardekar, an MNS party worker said that the employees are being harassed to leave the site so that the authorities can hand over the land to a private builder.

"We have been assured by the government that they will visit all the buildings and ask residents to list their complaints in a form. As there are many houses, if one is to be repaired, they will move the residents to another one until repairs are complete," said Bapardekar.