The family of Vimal Gaikwad has said that the authorities must pay compensation, stating that the deceased’s visually impaired husband is in no condition to work. “She was the pillar of our family. We lost her because the authorities were negligent,” Dipali Bansode, Vimal Gaikwad’s niece, told mid-day on Friday.

Gaikwad lived with her husband, Appasaheb, in a 40 to 50-square-foot room on the first floor of a relative’s home at Tiwari Compound near the Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Road in Powai. “She was working for a diamond company in SEEPZ. Mama is intellectually challenged and visually impaired and can’t walk properly. Mami was taking care of him. The authorities should think about this man as he is helpless now,” said Bansode, who lives with her family in the same house.