About nine people died on Monday morning in east Delhi's Vivek Vihar after a fire engulfed a four-story residential building in the area.
The fire department had to deploy around 12 vehicles to control the flames that spread over the building at around 3 am. The call was received by duty officer Mukesh Verma at around 3:47 am.
BJP MLA Sanjay Goyal, who visited the scene, said that the fire broke out due to a short circuit and spread to all four floors of the building.
"Due to a short circuit, a fire broke out at around 3:45 am and spread to all four floors of the building. Some people died because they were unable to open the locks,” he said.
The MLA also said that some of the bodies were burnt to skeletons. The bodies will only be identified after DNA sampling.
Officer Verma said that the firefighters and police teams used five ladders cutting tools and special turntable ladder to both douse the fire and carry out the rescue operations. Most of the casualties were found in the rear portion of the building.
According to local city councillor Pankaj Luthra five of the bodies were found at the rear end of the second floor. Another body was found at the rear, and three bodies were found on the top floor.
The gender of the victims could not be identified due to the condition of the remains. The cause of the incident has also not been confirmed.
Meanwhile, BJP state president Virendra Sachdeva said that the victim's families say the fire was caused by a spark in the AC. A delivery person also reportedly saw the sparks.
According to investigations, the deceased are:
Arvind Jain, 60, son of Chhote Lal,
Anita Jain, 58, wife of Arvind Jain,
Nishant Jain, 35, son of Arvind Jain,
Anchal Jain, 33, wife of Nishant Jain and
Master Akash Jain, son of Nishant Jain, age 1.5 years.
On the first floor, Shikha Jain, the wife of Naveen, age 45 years, was found dead.
On the third floor, Nitin Jain, 50 years, his wife Shailee Jain, 48 years and son Samyak Jain, 25 years, were found dead.
Naveen Jain, a man aged 48 years, was injured severely. One of the victims suffered burns on about 30 per cent of his body.
The Delhi Police and the Fire Brigade rescued about 10-15 people from the fire.The injured were taken to the GTB hospital.
