NEW DELHI: The owner of the ill-fated paying guest house that caught fire a day ago was booked by the Delhi Police on Thursday for endangering the lives of 35 women, including a four-year-old child. As per a local inquiry conducted by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), the building was being used as PG for girls accommodating 10 to 12 girls. At the time of the incident, 7-8 girls were present in the building and most of them came out through the adjacent building.
Due to suffocation caused by fire three girls including one two-year-old were trapped and were rescued and hospitalised. “All three girls are out of danger,” an MCD official said. Meanwhile, the civic agency said that they have issued directions to the zonal building department to open their office on September 28 and to conduct the survey of PGs in all wards of the Civil Lines zone.
A massive fire had broken out at a girls’ PG hostel in the Mukherjee Nagar of northwest Delhi on Wednesday after which 35 women had to be rescued and were subsequently shifted to a hospital due to the inhalation of fumes. They were later discharged after primary treatment. The fire had started from an electric meter in the stilt area where old furniture and a rickshaw were parked.
A senior Delhi Police official informed that they have registered an FIR in the matter under sections 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others), 337 (causes hurt to any person by doing any act so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life or the personal safety of others), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), and 34 (common intentions) of the Indian Penal Code.
The police have begun investigating the matter and during preliminary investigation it was revealed that, though, the fire department soon after information rushed 20 fire engines to the spot, yet, only 8 could reach the exact location because of traffic congestion and narrow lanes.
Mukherjee Nagar has in recent years, barring the time after COVID-19, turned into a coaching hub for government job aspirants and a popular hangout zone for students from the nearby Delhi University campus. The area is a one-stop destination for students and has become congested with the mushrooming of hundreds of coaching institutes.
In June, this year, students of a coaching institute in the Mukherjee Nagar area smashed windows, climbed down ropes and took the help of ladders in desperate attempts to escape a fire that broke out on the top floor of the building housing it. Around 200-250 students from different coaching centres were attending the classes at the time of the incident.
Fortunately, there were no casualties but a few students received injuries in the incident while they were escaping from the building. A girl staying at the paying guest accommodation said she could not sleep the whole night after the horrifying incident.