Noida: Vikas Chawla had been home all Saturday afternoon. His wife Sukvinder Kaur was down with flu, and around 4 pm he decided to ride his bike to the chemist near the society gate — a five-minute errand at most. He said goodbye to the family and wheeled his motorcycle out of the parking area of Tower D at Arihant Ambar.He never made it past the gate.A chunk of concrete broke away from a roof beam above and struck the 46-year-old on the head. Residents and security guards rushed him to Yatharth Hospital, barely five minutes away. Doctors declared him brought dead.“It all happened within 10 minutes,” said Rohit Chawla, the victim’s cousin. “One moment he was at home taking care of his family. The next, the society guard called to say he had met with a grievous accident.”What followed was a kind of grief that resists comprehension. Chawla, a manager at a co-working space in Noida, was the sole earning member of a household that included his wife, two children and both his parents — his father, now in his eighties, retired from a private company nearly two decades ago and receives no pension.The family had moved to Greater Noida West from Delhi’s Kalkaji about three years ago and lived on rent. With Chawla gone, that arrangement has become untenable.“It is almost a hand-to-mouth situation now,” Rohit said.The human cost of the accident fans out in multiple directions. Sukvinder, still unwell with the flu she had when her husband set out, has barely eaten since. “She is trying her best to make sense of it, but no one can imagine that the last time you would see your husband alive would be when he was just stepping out to get you medicine,” Rohit said.Their younger child, a four-year-old boy, does not yet understand what has happened. Their elder child, a 17-year-old daughter who recently sat for her Class 12 board examinations, does, and is struggling to come to terms with it. Her college admissions, once a matter for father and daughter to navigate together, now loom ahead of her without the person she depended on most.“She depended on her father for every decision regarding her career and studies,” Rohit said. “Now she feels completely lost.”Chawla’s last rites were performed at Antim Niwas in Sector 94 on Sunday. By Monday, the family’s home was crowded with relatives and neighbours offering condolences to a household still in shock.
Vikas Chawla, a manager at a co-working space in Noida, was the sole earning member of a household that included his wife, two children and both his parents
The tragedy has shaken the residential society in ways that extend beyond one family’s loss. Residents say they are now afraid to step outside. “It could have been anyone in place of Vikas,” said Amit Gupta, a resident of the complex. “Families are afraid to step out. Children are not going downstairs to play. We are all very scared.”Gupta said residents have launched a fund-raising effort across the society’s 628 flats, appealing to each household to contribute. “We met the family, and they are in complete financial crisis,” he said.Relatives say they are grateful for the gesture. “We are thankful that residents are trying to help, but this is a very tragic time for the entire family,” Rohit said.The incident has drawn wider attention to maintenance standards and structural safety in Greater Noida West’s high-rise societies, a belt that has expanded rapidly in recent years, with thousands of families moving into complexes where the gap between construction promises and upkeep reality has long been a source of complaint.Police have arrested Deepak Kumar, a Nimbus employee, who was serving as the maintenance in-charge of the society, so far. They also questioned AOA members and some people associated with the builder. But the Chawlas are pressing for accountability that goes beyond the immediate arrest. “We hope more people are held accountable during the investigation so that such incidents do not happen again,” he said.
