Three UPSC aspirants died after they were trapped in the basement of a coaching centre in Central Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar, which was flooded when a drain burst during heavy rain.

The incident comes days after a UPSC aspirant was electrocuted on a waterlogged Delhi street.

Around 7 pm on Saturday, the Delhi Fire Services received a call about flooding in the basement of Rau’s IAS Study Circle, and deployed five fire tenders for rescue operations, officials said. Divers from the National Disaster Response Force were also deployed to save the trapped students, though a faculty member at the coaching centre said that should have been prioritised instead of the fire tenders.

According to officials, they pulled out the bodies of the two students – both women – one by one, first at 10:30 pm and then at 11:20 pm. According to DFS officials, the search for a third person believed to be trapped is still underway.

A faculty member said when the flooding first began, efforts were made to evacuate the students, and a call was made to 112, but traffic jams led to delays in rescuers reaching there.

Aam Aadmi Party’s Durgesh Pathak, the MLA from Rajinder Nagar, said, “A drain burst at one point, due to which this issue has occurred. Pumps have been placed to remove the water. Had it been due to lack of desilting (of drains), water would have accumulated in other buildings as well, but the basement of only one building has been submerged because the drain burst at only one point.”

Waterlogging and desilting of drains has been a political flashpoint in the capital, with the opposition BJP frequently accusing the AAP-run Public Works Department and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi of not doing enough.

Rajender Nagar is known in the national capital – and the country – as a hub of coaching centres and paying guest accommodations, with students coming from far and wide with hopes of cracking entrance examinations.