Woman, son die in Shahdara house fire after ‘delayed’ rescue operations
NEW DELHI: Two members of a family—a 42-year-old woman and her 16-year-old son—were killed while four others sustained injuries after a fire broke out in a residential building in the Farsh Bazar area of Delhi’s Shahdara on Friday.
It was a family of six people—grandparents Kailash Gupta (72) and Bhagwati Gupta (70), their son and daughter-in-law Manish Gupta (45) and Shilpi Gupta (42), and their two grandsons Pranav Gupta (16) and Parth Gupta (19).
Shilpi Gupta and her teen son Pranav died due to asphyxiation, while the police and the fire brigade jointly rescued all others. Manish’s condition is said to be critical.
Delhi Fire Service (DFS) Director Atul Garg said they received a call at 5:24 a.m. regarding a fire at a house in Bholanath Nagar, Shahdara, and six fire tenders were immediately put into service. “The fire was in the third-floor flat of the building,” Garg said.
The firefighters doused the flames, rescued four people from the ill-fated building’s third floor, and took them to Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital.
When the cops went inside the flat to check for more survivors, they found two unconscious people who were then immediately taken to a hospital where doctors declared them brought dead.
DCP (Shahdara) Prashant Gautam said the forensic department’s teams examined the scene of the incident. “Legal action will be taken accordingly,” he said.
Prima-facie, the cops believe that the cause of the fire was a short circuit induced by the overloading of the air conditioning unit; however, the exact cause will only be determined after the probe concludes.
‘Haphazard parking’
The locals of the area blamed the narrow lanes and haphazard parking of vehicles by the residents, which caused the firefighting operation to be stalled for a while.
“The delay was a key factor in the loss of life of my family members,” said Hariom Gupta, a relative of Kailash Gupta, who was injured in the fire.
Hariom said even though the fire trucks were very close to the house, they could not get through because cars were parked all along the narrow lanes. “Big fire engines were sent back, and smaller ones took more than 20 minutes to reach the location.”