2 homeless men killed in Vasant Vihar shelter fire

Shubhranshu Kumar Das, who has been staying at the shelter – a permanent shelter in the city – for the last seven years, was one of the first to wake up.

“I woke up to the smell of burning wires around 3 am and saw the far corner of the shelter burning. There was thick smoke… I started shouting and ran out,” he said. By then, another shelter dweller and some slum residents had started to try douse the fire.

Moti Lal (15) had woken to the sounds of shouting and ran to see what the commotion was about. “We could see thick smoke coming out of the shelter,” he said.

“We began hearing a popping sound inside and a motorcycle parked inside the shelter exploded,” he added.

There had been a community event on Sunday evening and a tent had been set up outside the shelter. Many of the vehicles, which were usually parked alongside the walls of the shelter, were moved elsewhere due to this, barring one motorcycle, belonging to the shelter’s caretaker, Vikas.

While Arjun — who had been staying at the shelter for the last 10 years — was identified as one of the dead almost immediately, Santosh was misidentified for the first few hours.

“I first thought Vikas (one of the residents of the shelter) had died because Santosh was sleeping in his bed… he was new to the shelter and didn’t have a set place. Everyone else had their own beds but it was Santosh’s second night in the shelter. I called Vikas and he said he was still at work. I put two and two together… since Santosh had slept on Vikas’ bed the night before too,” said Vikas, the caretaker.

Arjun’s father, Ashok, was asleep in a room inside the community toilet he cleaned.

On Tuesday, he returned a broken man from Safdarjung Hospital after providing his DNA sample to the police. Manoj, Ashok’s cousin, said, “He lost his wife when Arjun was a few months old. He came to Delhi when Arjun was very young… he would carry Arjun in a sling on his back when he worked in construction sites.”

Sudesh, Arjun’s 18-year-old cousin, said that from an early age, Arjun began working to ease his father’s burdens. “He worked in the housekeeping section of Jaypee Vasant Continental hotel. He came back around 9.30 and must have fallen asleep… his father was looking to get him married.”

However, not much is known about Santosh. “He told us that he had had a fight with his family and had run away… He worked as a labourer and would come back to the shelter and fall asleep. Even his parents didn’t know where he was,” said the caretaker.

He regretted not doing as much as he could to help. “I was on leave for a week and someone else was taking care of things…people panic when such things happen,” said Vikas.

A resident of Coolie Camp, Vikas was at the spot immediately when the alarm was raised. “I don’t know who placed my bike inside the shelter… it must have prevented the two from escaping,” he said.

Arjun’s death has hit him particularly hard. “I’d seen him grow up here… He was everything to his father. Now, he’s lost everything,” he said.