One called a friend saying ‘bacha lo, please’, another hid under table as pillar fell on him

New Delhi: The building collapse has left at least 10 students injured — young aspirants who came to Delhi chasing dreams of a better future, but are now left with deep mental scars and psychological trauma apart from physical wounds.Vishal, a 24-year-old BTech graduate hailing from Bihar’s Jehanabad district, moved to the capital to prepare for Indian Engineering Services (IES) examination, hoping to secure a govt job and support his family. When the tragedy unfolded on Saturday, he was in the adjacent canteen to celebrate his friend Kapil’s new job.“I received a call around 9 pm from one of Vishal’s friends that he was injured,” said Vishal’s sister, Lovely Devi (29), who lives in Kanpur. “The rest of our family is in Surat, where our father runs a business. Since I was closest to Delhi, I rushed here immediately.”Holding her tears back, she said that Vishal was studying hard to get a job and shoulder family responsibilities. “Just after the building collapsed, he somehow managed to hide under a table. While his upper body was shielded from the impact, a pillar fell, and he suffered multiple fractures in his legs.”Another injured student, 25-year-old Aastha from Gwalior, completed her MBBS in Kyrgyzstan and moved to Delhi this Feb to prepare for her Foreign Medical Graduate Examination scheduled on June 28. Her father runs a petrol pump in Madhya Pradesh.Recalling the terrifying moments, her friend, Anamika Attri, 26, said, “When I called up Aastha, she was crying and pleading with me: Daabe hue hai, please bacha lo (I am crushed, please save me).” Aastha, who is in hospital, has lost movement below her neck.“We still haven’t told her that Ravi bhaiya (a classmate) is dead,” Anamika said. “She can barely speak. We don’t know how she will handle the shock.”Aastha, her friends said, was the most hardworking among them all, and was meticulously preparing for the examination that she can no longer appear this year.Drawing a parallel with the 2024 flooding of a tuition class in Old Rajendra Nagar, which claimed the lives of three students, they said, “Every time, students who come to Delhi seeking education and a bright future, end up paying the price for others’ negligence.”