A 35-year-old woman and her 16-year-old daughter were charred to death after a fire broke out at their house in Nihal Vihar in Outer Delhi on Tuesday morning. The house was full of guests as the deceased’s brother had got married two days ago.
The fire broke out around 6.40 a.m., a couple of hours after the family came back from the wedding. The bride and the groom had a narrow escape as they were pulled out unconscious. Two others, including a two-and-a-half-month-old baby, have been hospitalised.
The police said the fire started in a mattress godown on the ground floor of the building. There were more than 20 people in the house when the fire broke out. The godown’s owner lived with his family on the first floor and the victim’s family had rented the second and the third floor. There were five people on the second floor while the others were on the third. All of the people were sleeping at the time of the incident. They had come to Delhi to attend a wedding and were to leave for Sirsa in Haryana by Tuesday noon.
The deceased were identified as Parminder Kaur and her daughter Harinder Kaur who lived on the second floor of the house. The police have identified the other victims as Gurmeet (50) and Jaspreet, who are reported to be stable.
Short-circuit
The Police said that the fire broke out due to a short-circuit and they have registered a case of negligence against the godown’s owner, Riyasat Khan and arrested him.
According to fire service officer: “The fire call was received around 7.03 a.m. after which 11 fire tenders were rushed to the spot. The blaze was doused around 10 a.m.” The fire fighters had taken out four persons from the building and rushed them to the hospital.
“The people in the building saw the smoke and rushed to the ground floor. A PCR call was made by a neighbour and the fire department rushed to the spot,” said a police officer.
The officer said that the victims may have suffocated due to the smoke. ''We are waiting for the post-mortem report to ascertain the reason of their deaths,” he added.