How an alert couple and cops rescued trapped residents

NEW DELHI: An alert couple, malfunctioning call bells, and a bunch of courageous policemen contributed in limiting the death toll in the Kohat Enclave fire on Friday.

A 90-year-old man and two women from his family were rescued by the policemen. A constable climbed down a ladder from a height of 70 feet with the elderly man on his shoulder.

Twenty-four people, including a security guard, were asleep when the fire started around 2.30 am in the electricity meters after a short-circuit. The call bells and the alarm system across floors of the four-storey building went off in at the same time.

The constant ringing of the bell woke up Surjeet Singh and his wife, who live on the top floor (third floor). Singh’s wife came out in the balcony. She looked down and saw fire and smoke billowing out of the meter panel.

“I informed my husband and we both came down. The guard was sleeping. We woke him and he alerted families on other floors using the alarm. We individually called all the families and asked them to come down as the fire was spreading ,” said Singh’s wife.

The couple said everyone responded to the calls, except Rakesh Nagpal who was sleeping in his first-floor flat with wife and two children. “We believe the couple failed to hear the bell and calls on their mobile phones. Since the fire had engulfed the entire parking space, nobody could reach their floor,” she said.

DCP Aslam Khan said a team of five police personnel from Netaji Subhash Place police station led by ACP, Shalimar Bagh risked their lives in rescuing three members of a family trapped on the second floor. Three other members of the family had already come out. But as 90-year-old Sarabjeet Singh could not walk fast, his daughter-in-law Neelu and granddaughter Aishwarya too were stuck.

“The three had locked themselves in a washroom. The ACP called them over the phone and asked them to open a rear window so that the smoke could get out. He guided them to reach the terrace of the building from where they were rescued,” said Khan.

SANCHIT KHANNA/HT The fourstorey residential building in northwest Delhi’s Kohat Enclave near Pitampura where a fire broke out in the early hours of Friday.