Crime branch begins probe; owner still at large

NEW DELHI:  The Delhi Police Crime Branch on Wednesday formally took over the probe into the Karol Bagh hotel fire, while one of the two unclaimed bodies was identified to be that of a Pune resident.  
Seventeen people died in the Hotel Arpit Palace blaze, and now only one body remains unidentified at a hospital.The hotel’s general manager Rajender Kumar and manager Vikas Kumar were sent to two-day police custody by a court.

The court directed the police to not torture the accused during remand, a senior police officer said, adding the efforts were on to nab Shardendu Goel, the hotel owner. 

Prima facie, there was “some willful negligence” on the part of the hotel authorities.  
“The 16th victim was Dr Rahul from Pune. He was in the city along with another doctor from Maharashtra, who were charred to death in the fire,” an official said. “The last body has been sent for a DNA test. It was so terribly burnt that doctors failed to identify him.” 

The 16 identified victims include three members of a family from Kerala’s Eranakulam —  Jayashree P.C, P.C. Vidhyasagar, and P. Nalini Amma. Others were identified as S. Aravinth, K. Nandakumar, and Sankaranarayanan from Tamil Nadu; Santosh Mahadev  and Rahul from Maharashtra; Chalpatirao E.V.S and Pranav Kumar Bhaskar from Andhra Pradesh; Rabia Jusafbhai Menam from Gujarat; Suresh Kumar from Haryana; Tara Chand from Uttarakhand; and three Myanmarese pilgrims.Meanwhile, hotels in Karol Bagh claimed that proper safety measures were taken in their properties. “Fire extinguishers have been installed at all floors. There are functional emergency exits too,” the manager of Metro View Hotel, adjacent to Arpit Palace, said.

inspection begins at over 300 hotels
Delhi Fire Service began a fire-audit at about 380 hotels across central Delhi. The government has directed the department to inspect buildings which are five floors or more and submit a report within a week.