Delhi struggles to escape grip of fatal fires

An inferno at a Hauz Rani bed-and-breakfast killed three Bangladeshi relatives, adding to the recent toll of 26 in Delhi. Families face recovery challenges.

New Delhi

The lane where the building is located. (Vipin Kumar/HT Photo)

Anxious relatives of the victims of the Tughlakabad fire were shuffling around the premises of All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), looking for their loved ones, at the hospitals, checking with the staff and visitors alike when they came across a family from Bangladesh, who were waiting to receive the body of their relative who had died in a fire at a bed-and-breakfast facility in Hauz Rani on June 3.

The Capital was still struggling to escape the grips of a fatal inferno that killed 23 people, when another such incident left it powerless, bawling over losing the lives of three more of its residents.

Seventy-year-old Sayeda Begum, mother-in-law of Rahana Akhtar, 41, who died in the Hauz Rani fire, was sitting silently in a corner of the mortuary, waiting for the formalities to end.

Akhtar, her husband Mosharaf Hossain, 47, and her brother Nurul Amin, 44, had come to India for Hossain’s kidney transplant surgery. Hossain’s cousin, Zohra, and her daughter had also accompanied him, as Zohra was Hossain’s donor.

“We were informed that Rahana passed away on June 10, and we came to Delhi the same day. She was being treated for the past seven days. She and Hossain had two children, aged 14 and 11, and she worked as a principal officer at Pubali Bank in Dhaka,” said Sayeda.

Hossain, who was also injured in the fire, was still in the hospital. “He is better, but he suffered injuries to his tongue and throat due to the fire. His voice is different.”

Sayeda said that she lived in the US, and had recently returned to Dhaka to look after her grandchildren.

Hossain’s aunt, who did not want to be named, was accompanying Sayeda. She said that on top of the gruelling process of recovering the body, the two were also facing complications in recovering the family’s belongings, which were lost or damaged in the fire.

“Multiple phones and five pieces of luggage, along with $14,000 cash, 11,000 British pounds, and ₹63,000 is missing. We have to go to the Malviya Nagar police station now, but we do not speak the language, so it is very difficult,” she said.

Nurul Amin’s brother-in-law, Mohammed Robiul, 33, previously told HT that the five of them had landed in Delhi on the night of June 2. “They stayed at the airport overnight, and reached the hotel only on the morning of June 3, when the fire broke out. They were in the ground floor restaurant when the fire started. Amin was not able to get out in time.”