E-Paper
Blaze kills couple in Jaitpuri house
New Delhi
New Delhi
A 70-year-old man and his 65-year-old wife were killed after a brazier they had lit to keep themselves warm before going to sleep in their house in south east Delhi’s Jaitpur started a fire in the early hours of Thursday.
Senior police and fire fighting officers said that they suspect that the couple had died of smoke inhalation even before the flames reached their room. Police said the couple’s 14-year-old grandson, who woke up to the fire and called for help, was also injured in the incident.
The victims, Babulal and his wife Asharfi Devi, lived with one of their three sons in Jaitpur’s Hari Nagar area. According to the police, the fire was reported around 3.45am, after their grandson Lokesh, who was also sleeping in the same room, woke up to the flames and rushed out to alert his family members and neighbours.
A police officer said that witnesses and locals told them that the fire was not big and they managed to control it by pouring buckets of water on it. The fire tenders that rushed to the spot were not required as the fire was only inside a room where the couple and their grandson was sleeping,” the officer said.
He said, “Lokesh has told us that when he woke up he saw that the room was up in flames and there was a lot of smoke. He made his way out immediately and sounded the alarm. Preliminary probe suggests that Babulal and Devi must have fallen unconscious due to asphyxiation before they could realize. Our men, with the help of locals, pulled the husband-wife out of the damaged room and they were rushed to a hospital where the doctors pronounced them dead,” the officer said.
Their bodies were sent for autopsy to ascertain the cause of death. Lokesh, who tried to save them and narrowly escaped the fire, was also injured and was treated for burns.
Police said the couple has two more sons who live nearby and used to run a tea stall close to their house until last year, but had recently stopped going to the shop.
