Patna: Tanya Soni, a 25-year-old college student, enjoyed poetry, frequently attended cultural events, and was driven to pass the UPSC entrance exam to enter the civil service. However, a soggy day spent at the library cut short her life and her goals. Tanya is one of the three aspirants to the civil service who perished on Saturday when rainwater filled Rau’s IAS Study Circle basement in Rajendra Nagar, Delhi. The 25-year-old, who was born in Aurangabad, Bihar, has lived in Delhi ever since she started college. She was getting ready for the IAS entrance exam, having recently finished her political science bachelor’s degree. Her father works in Telangana, where her parents reside. Her father, Vijay Kumar, was en route to Lucknow when he received the news. He told news agency PTI, “We deboarded at Nagpur and took a flight to Delhi after getting the information.”
Tanya’s body is on its way to her Bihar home for the last rites. Vijay Kumar, who works with Singareni Collieries Company Ltd, said becoming an IAS officer was Tanya’s childhood dream. At her Aurangabad home, relatives are shattered. Tanya’s grandfather said she was the brightest student in the family. Her cousin Ankit said, “She was very sharp, the sharpest among us all. She loved poetry. She was also interested in dancing and would perform at college functions,” he said. Tanya was among the 20-odd students in the library in the coaching center’s basement Saturday evening when a downpour sent water gushing in and trapped the students. Three students died, and the others were rescued.

Deaths at Delhi Coaching Center

Tanya Soni, a 25-year-old resident of Aurangabad, Bihar, had traveled to Delhi from Telangana. She was a Delhi University student who had been admitted to the coaching center 1.5 months prior. She had been residing in the women’s dorm at Maharaja Agrasen College. The 25-year-old Shreya Yadav was a native of Ambedkar Nagar in Uttar Pradesh. She was admitted to the coaching center two months ago, having previously resided in a PG hostel in the Shadipur neighborhood of west Delhi. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Agriculture at Uttar Pradesh College.
Nevin Delvin, 28, of Ernakulam, Kerala, was a PhD student at Jawaharlal Nehru University studying arts and aesthetics. He had only started at the coaching institute eight months prior, but up until then, he had been living in rented housing in the Vasant Kunj neighborhood of the university.

Shreya Yadav

In April 2024, 25-year-old Shreya Yadav from Uttar Pradesh’s Ambedkar Nagar enrolled in Rau’s IAS tutoring program. Out of her three siblings, Shreya was the oldest. Her goal upon moving to Delhi was to ace one of the hardest exams in the nation. Shreya graduated with a B.Sc. in Agriculture from Sultanpur’s Kamla Nehru Institute of Technology. Her instructors and family recall her as a bright child who was always “smart in studies” and as a potential student. One of Shreya’s brothers, Abhishek Yadav, is a mass communication student, while Shreya’s father owns a dairy store in Ambedkar Nagar.
Rajendra Yadav, Shreya’s father, asserted that she had previously told the family about the basements flooding after rain and that the institute had taken no action to resolve the problem. According to her father, he learned about the incident from the media and was not informed about it by the institute. Dharmendra Yadav, Shreya’s uncle, claimed he was denied access to view her body at the hospital in the meantime.

Tanya Soni

Tanya Soni, a twenty-five-year-old Secunderabad, Telangana resident, was born in Aurangabad, Bihar. She resided in the Maharaja Agrasen College women’s hostel while a student at Delhi University. Tanya only enrolled in the coaching program 1.5 months ago, as reported by PTI. Vijay Kumar, her father, works for a Telangana mining company. Tanya had a brother and a sister who were her younger siblings.

Nevin Dalvin

Nevin Dalvin, 28, is an IAS candidate from Ernakulam, Kerala. He has been studying for a PhD at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi for around eight months. Nevin, a resident of Patel Nagar, went to the underground library on Saturday morning at around ten in the morning. Nevin’s family, who were originally from the Thiruvananthapuram district, has been residing in Ernakulam for the past ten to twelve years.