Several students staged a protest at Karol Bagh Metro Station after three of their fellow students were killed in heavy rains that flooded the basement of a coaching centre in Delhi’s Old Rajendra Nagar area.

A protesting student at the site told a police officer: “Jab tak MCD commissioner nahi aaega tab tak hum nahi hatenge (We will not leave until the MCD commissioner arrives.)” Other students were seen shouting slogans such as “We want justice.”

MCD officials on Sunday revealed that the basement of the coaching institute in Old Rajendra Nagar, where three government employees died in floods due to rain, was being illegally used as a library. According to the building plan and the No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the fire brigade, Rao’s IAS Study Circle had wrongly identified the basement as a parking and storage space.

“The completion certificate of the institute’s building clearly states that it can only be used for parking and storage in the basement. It means that the library was running illegally in the basement,” PTI quoted an MCD official as saying.

Three civil servants were killed on Saturday when the basement of a coaching centre in Old Rajinder Nagar, central Delhi, was flooded following heavy rains. Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) Commissioner Ashwani Kumar, who took over in June, has already suspended several officials from the corporation’s construction department.

Last week, three policemen from the area where the coaching centre is located were suspended. The coaching institute had wrongly declared the basement as a parking and storage space to both the building authorities and the fire department, violating several norms, Delhi Fire Chief Atul Garg said.

Delhi Mayor Shelly Oberoi has ordered strict action against coaching institutes violating building bylaws and called for an inquiry to ascertain whether MCD officials are responsible for the incident. The bodies of two female students and a male student were recovered from the site during a rescue operation carried out by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), police and fire brigade.