Four of family killed in Delhi house fire; double locks on doors may have thwarted escape, say kin
Delhi Fire Services Chief Atul Garg said that the fire started in the inverter and sofa on the first floor, resulting in the four persons inhaling the smoke.
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The fire call was made around 3.37am in the early hours of Tuesday and the blaze, which was not of a major scale according to officers, was controlled within 15 to 20 minutes. (Express Photo) A blackened stuffed toy lies abandoned on the bed in one room; it was white not long ago. A teddy bear, this one brown in colour, hangs from a hook in the adjacent room. The walls are covered in soot, bedsheets are semi-burnt, crumpled. On the floor, the body of a man is on top of a mattress. Inside the washroom, bodies of a woman and her children — two young men — are found facing the ceiling.
Until Monday night, this was a happy family living in the first floor of a house in Z block at Prem Nagar, Chhawla, in Dwarka. However, a fire that likely broke out due to a short circuit in the inverter led to the death of all four by asphyxiation in the wee hours of Tuesday, said police.
The deceased have been identified as Heera Singh, 48, his wife Neetu, 46, and sons Chirag, 23, and Lakshay, 21.
A call to the fire department was made at 3.37am and the blaze, which was not of a major scale according to officers, was controlled in 15 to 20 minutes.
Then why could not a single member of the family escape?
The main door of the floor was locked from inside. “This is why nobody could open it from outside,” said Gurmeet Singh, brother of Heera Singh, who lives in the back portion of the same building.
“Chirag suffered from epilepsy. He would often wake up in the middle of the night and attempt to unlock the doors. As a precaution, they used to put double locks: One an automatic lock, and a padlock. This was a daily practice before the family went to bed around 11pm.”
He said the smoke suffocated them and they were unable to reach the main door and open it.
Delhi Fire Services Chief Atul Garg said the fire started in the inverter and spread to the sofa.
The four victims were declared dead on arrival at Rao Tularam Memorial Hospital.
A senior fire officer said, “Heera’s body was on a mattress, a little away from the bathroom where the other three bodies were found. Prima facie, it seems all four members of the family tried to save themselves by entering the washroom and splashing their faces with water. Simultaneously, Heera tried to rush towards the door to unlock it. He may have tried to reach out for the keys on the wall hanger, but failed due to the smoke all around. They eventually collapsed due to asphyxiation.”
According to fire officers, lack of ventilation in the house could have possibly made matters worse. “The hall had a small window to which a cooler was attached. The window in one of the rooms had an AC attached to it, hence, no ventilation. The attached bathroom too had neither ventilation nor exhaust fan. The second room and the kitchen also did not have any windows, which is why the whole house was filled with fumes from the fire,” an officer said.
An FIR has been registered at Chhawla police station.
Heera Singh used to work as a freelance photographer while his son Lakshay worked at a private firm, said their relatives. Neetu was a housewife.
Gurmeet said once neighbours told them about the fire, they first tried to rescue the family themselves. “We came over and started banging on the door, trying to open it. Another neighbour got a hammer and we attempted to break the door open but to no avail. Eventually, the fire department came and broke open the door…,” he said. “But it was too late.”
A senior police officer said the fire likely broke out at 3 am and spread to the sofa, where clothes lay in a pile.
Neelam Kapoor, a relative, said the house was owned by Heera Singh’s mother, who lived alone on the ground floor while the families of her two sons lived in separate sections on the first floor.
A group of women were standing outside the house, still in disbelief. “Everyone is here: The police, the media… But I still don’t understand how it happened. Why could they not open the door?” said a woman in the crowd.
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