Family and Friends Recall the Anxious Night After DU Student Was Found Dead in Building Debris

When the Satya Niketan building collapsed on a Monday morning, the news spread like a shockwave through Delhi University’s PGDAV College. Akshat Singh Yadav, a second‑year student who was also preparing for the UPSC exams, vanished beneath the rubble, and his family spent a sleepless night glued to their phones.

"We weren’t able to get through," a close relative told reporters, voice trembling. "We kept calling him, but his phone just wouldn’t connect. It felt like the whole night was hanging on that tiny screen." The call logs showed nothing—no missed calls, no messages—just an unsettling silence that grew louder with every passing minute.

It wasn’t until sometime between three and three‑thirty in the morning that a shaky phone call finally broke the tension. "We heard he’d been found," the family member said, eyes welling up. "We rushed to the site, identified the body, and the reality hit us all at once. He had been studying for the UPSC, dreaming about his future, and now—"

The grief was raw, but there was also a strange, frantic need to confirm. Akshat’s maternal grandfather, who lives in the same sector, recounted the frantic drive to Satya Niketan as soon as the news broke.

"We reached the place and saw the entire building reduced to a heap of concrete and dust. He lived on the first floor, just a year ago he moved into that PG. Seeing it all flattened... it was hard to process," he said, pausing before continuing, "They took his body away, but we couldn’t get any answer over the phone. We stayed there until about 2 a.m., hoping for a sign. At around 3 a.m. someone finally told us he’d been found."

His friends, too, were caught in the whirlwind. Yugank Goyal, who barely knew Akshat, learned of the collapse around 1:30 p.m. on Sunday. "I was near the college when the news broke. The administration called an emergency meeting and said a student from our college might be trapped. They asked us to keep them posted if we heard anything," Yugank explained.

Later that night, a ragged group of students made their way to AIIMS Hospital, where the victims were being taken. "When we arrived, we were told that Akshat didn’t survive. His mother came forward, identified the body, and even the MLC number matched," Yugank said, his voice dropping to a whisper.

Another classmate, Ayushman Sharma, described how the college’s WhatsApp group buzzed with frantic messages. "We got a note from the administration that a student from our PG was inside the collapsed building. We went to Satya Square, hoping for good news. Instead we got the worst," he recalled.

The loss rippled through the entire student community. One unnamed student summed it up: "Yesterday we heard Akshat was in the building. By night we were sharing a message that he was fine. This morning, that message turned into a nightmare."

Amid the grief, the focus also shifted to the building’s owner, Hariram Bansal. A neighbour, S.K. Sharma, said he knew Bansal only as a shopkeeper in Sector 23. "He runs a hardware store, his family lives nearby, and he owns a few houses in the area. I didn’t know anything about the collapse until it happened," Sharma said.

The tragedy has left a scar on both the families directly affected and the broader university community, reminding everyone how fragile life can be when concrete walls give way.