5 held after Noida lift crashes injuring 9 techies

Five people, including employees of a co-working space provider, were arrested on Saturday for alleged negligence that led to a lift crash which resulted in injuries to nine staffers of an IT firm, police said.

The lift crash occurred on Friday evening when the nine employees of Erasmith Technologies were in the elevator at the River Side Tower, an office leasing-out complex, in Sector 125 of Noida. It had a sudden free fall from the eighth floor to the basement of the building, they said.

"An FIR was lodged in the case at the local police station and five people have been arrested. An investigation is still on and more people could be arrested if their role comes to light for negligence in the lift crash," Additional DCP (Noida) Manish Kumar Mishra told PTI.

He said of the nine injured, two were discharged from the hospital soon after while others were stable and out of danger.

Those arrested have been identified as Mohit Pant, Abhineet Mathur, Ramesh Chandra, Neetu Chandna Bisht and Shraddha Thapa.

All of them are employees of co-working space provider Awfis, according to police.

According to the FIR, seen by PTI, an employee of Erasmith Technologies claimed that Awfis had been informed about lift malfunction in the past also but the issue persisted.

"The owner and employees of Awfis company were repeatedly told that the lift was faulty and any person could die or get seriously injured. But the owner and employees of Awfis did not pay any attention to our complaint," the complainant said.

"The incident happened because of this and nine people of the company were seriously injured. Security arrangements and standards were not followed by Awfis company, which is also responsible for the safe operations of the lift," he alleged.

The FIR has been registered under IPC sections 287 (negligent conduct with respect to machinery), 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide) and 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt) against Awfis employees, the police said.