NEW DELHI: DCP, Outer, Sameer Sharma said an FSL team visited the building and gathered evidence. Meanwhile, a Delhi court has sent the two owners of the unit - Harish Goel and Varun Goel - to police custody.
The huge toll in the fire is being partly attributed to the fact that the fire department was informed at least an hour after the fire broke out at the four-storey building. There was a delay of over 40 minutes which allowed the fire to spread from the first to the other floors of the building. The fire fighters, too, reached 18 minutes late owing to traffic congestion at Peeragarhi.
Atul Garg, Director, Delhi Fire Service, told TOI: "We got the fire call much later when the fire had already started spreading to the other floors. We have fire stations in a radius of 2-3 kilometres and the fire tenders were dispatched as soon as we got the first call at 4:48 pm. The fire had, however, started by 4 pm. Owing to the heavy traffic at Peeragarhi, our fire tenders reached 18 minutes after the first call was received."
Meanwhile, those who tried to escape the inferno found the staircase filled with smoke and the door closed. The building, spread across an area of around 500 square yards, had a single entry and exit point which turned it into a death-trap for the people inside. A door at the rear remained closed. There was no escape from the terrace either since the door which gave access, too, was shut. The door at the rear of the building was closed as well.
The office of the CCTV cameras and router manufacturing unit was spread across the three floors. The first floor had the office, the second housed a packaging unit while a conference hall, kitchen and assembling unit was located on the third floor. The conference to motivate the employees, which was to be addressed by Jyani, was on when the fire broke out.
The police have claimed that the owners of the factory have said they were paying a rent of around a lakh and had a turnover of Rs 50-60 crores. The staircase of the building was usually stacked with goods ready to be dispatched. "The building owner who stayed on the top floor had cut access to the terrace, making it tough for people to find an escape route," said a senior police officer. "Many who were inside the office said the fire started from the staircase where a meter was installed, cutting their access to the only possible exit. The gate at the rear was shut and stacked with goods. The owner of the building, Manish Lakra, who is absconding along with his family, stayed there with his mother, wife and children, who too are missing.
According to a fire official, there was extensive use of glass inside the building. Due to the heat generated by the flames, the glass began to crash on the firefighters which hindered the rescue operation. On the second floor, the rescuers heard the ringing of mobile phones which helped them in tracing the people who were unconscious and trapped. "There relatives must be calling them but they were unconscious," said the official.
When TOI visited the spot on Friday night, it ran into a massive traffic snarl due to which fire tenders were reaching late. "We coordinated with DMRC and filled our water tenders at its depot," said the officer.
Garg said more than 120 firefighters were at the spot. "They rescued 30-40 people who were trapped inside the burnt structure," he said, adding that the building did not have a fire NOC. The fire department also found that it had no fire-fighting equipment.
No lessons learnt even after 3 major fire incidents in 5 yrs | page 7
New Delhi: In the last five years, Delhi witnessed three deadly fire incidents in which 77 people died but not much has changed on the ground. In 2018, 17 people died after being trapped inside a burning factory in the Bawana area. The next year, 17 people were killed during a blaze in Karol Bagh in February. Months later, 43 labourers died in a factory fire in north Delhi's Anaj Mandi.
All of these establishments were being brazenly run while flouting fire safety norms. After the incidents, Delhi Police filed FIRs, made arrests and filed chargesheets. However, these have been no deterrence and infernos continue to claim lives. A scrutiny of developments in these fire incidents shows a slow-paced walk towards justice.
In the fire incident at Arpit Hotel in Karol Bagh, cops had arrested the owners, brothers Rakesh and Sharad Indu Goel, hotel's general manager Rajender Kumar, and the manager, Vikas. Later in 2019, Delhi Police had filed chargesheet in the case and owners were charged with a range of offences, including culpable homicide, destruction of evidence and hatching a criminal conspiracy.
According to the chargesheet, the hotel was being run like a death trap with the emergency exit intentionally closed. Later, a court granted bail to Rakesh Goel and his brother Sharad Indu Goel on the basis of likely delay in the trial.
In 2020, the fire department informed the court that the deaths in the hotel were due to lack of awareness on safety arrangements.
In the Bawana factory fire reported on January 20, 2018, the police had arrested two co-owners Manoj Jain and Lalit Goyal, Surjeet Goyal and Girish Rathore, their partners in another factory in Bawana and Jain's son Rinku (25).
Two months after the incident, the crime branch had filed a chargesheet. The chargesheet mentioned that the factory had only one entry and exit point due to which the workers could not escape.
Later Jain was granted bail in the case. After he was released on bail, he opened a firecracker factory in Haryana's Kundli. In 2020, he was arrested by Haryana Police for illegally manufacturing crackers and sent to jail, but once again came out on bail. In July last year, Jain set up his new factory in Ghaziabad, which was raided by local police, but Jain escaped.
In the Anaj Mandi fire, which took place in December 2019, cops arrested four people-building owner Rehan, his brother Imran, Furkaan (Rehan's manager) and another man named Mohammad Suhail. In 2020, the crime branch filed the chargesheet saying that none of the owners were even aware of the number of people working in the factory and had taken no precautions for their safety.
Last year, Rehan, Suhail and Furkan had filed a plea seeking their discharge in the case. The court, however, denied the relief to them.
