Capital blaze: Owner of building lands in net
NEW DELHI: The police on Sunday arrested Manish Lakra, the owner of the Mundka building where a devastating fire killed 27 people on Friday, police said.
Lakra, who was present in the four-storey building with his family when the incident took place, managed to escape, police said.
Deputy commissioner of police (outer) Sameer Sharma said Lakra was on his way to Haridwar when he was arrested from Ghevra Mor on Delhi-Rohtak Road on Sunday morning. “Police teams were conducting raids to nab Lakra. He was arrested based on a tip-off that the Lakra was escaping the city,” Sharma said.
An investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Lakra lived on the terrace of the building with his wife, two children and mother.
They managed to escape by cutting a plastic sheet that separated the building with the adjacent one. People trapped on the floor below could not reach the terrace since the lone staircase in the building was on fire.
Also, the door to the terrace was locked from inside, the officer said adding that it was usually locked too since Lakra lived there.
“As soon as he (Lakra) realised that fire broke out, he and his family cut the plastic sheet and jumped to the next building,” the officer said. Police have seized the footage from a nearby CCTV cam
COPS HAVE SEIZED THE FOOTAGE FROM A NEARBY CCTV CAMERA TO ANALYSE THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
era to analyse the sequence of events.
DCP Sharma said Lakra was arrested alone, and that the location of his family members was not known. “He said he called his relatives when the fire broke out, and then shifted locations in Delhi and Haryana to evade arrest. He said he also slept at a temple,” the DCP said.
The DCP also said that role of everyone, including the civic agencies, will be probed to fix responsibility. “We will write to the civic agencies including the concerned municipal corporation and Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC) to explain relevant details. Their roles will be examined. A thorough investigation will be conducted and responsibility will be fixed,” Sharma said.
The police investigation so far has shown that Lakra did not get the mandatory police verification of his tenants -- Harish Goyal and his brother, Varun Goyal -- who were running a CCTV assembling unit in building. The Goyal brothers have already been arrested.
The Goyals who were present when the unit caught fire managed to escape the building on a crane that was roped in by locals to help rescue the people trapped inside the building.