3 children among 9 killed in Delhi house inferno

NEW DELHI: Three children were among nine dead in outer Delhi’s Kirari on Monday as a massive fire broke out at a three-storey building, the ground floor of which was being used for garment storage, in the second inferno in the national capital this month after a blaze claimed 44 lives in Anaj Mandi.

A cylinder blast ripped through the building in Inder Enclave near Prem Nagar after the fire broke out shortly after midnight, sending cracks through the residential-cumcommercial complex and killing people aged between three months and 65 years from two families, the police said.

Five of those who died belonged to a family that resided in a small room on the first floor. The other four dead and three injured people were from the second family that owned the building. They lived on the first and second floors, the police said.

While SD Mishra, deputy commissioner of police (Rohini), said the fire may have been caused by short-circuit in an electric board in the warehouse, some relatives of the deceased tenants alleged foul play. They accused one of the survivors of setting the house on fire in a bid to usurp the property constructed over a 50-square yard plot.

The incident comes a fortnight after a massive blaze at a five-storey building that housed illegal factories in north Delhi’s Anaj Mandi left 44 people dead.

Monday’s blaze occurred in an unauthorised colony where several houses are being used as manufacturing units for goods such as helmets, fans, garments and plastic items. This led to a blame game between the Delhi government and the municipal corporation.

The DCP, however, said that no commercial activity was going on in this house. “It was only being used as storage for fabrics,” he said.

Dr PS Nayyer, medical superintendent of Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital, said there were “some injuries to all the bodies” and the deaths were not just due to asphyxiation.