Delhi: ‘Mundka building owner fled with family from top floor amid fire’

Local residents told police that Lakra, along with his mother, wife and two children, climbed down from the terrace to the roof of an adjacent building using a rope

New Delhi: A day after 27 people were killed and 17 injured in a fire in an illegal commercial building in Mundka, Delhi Police on Saturday said they are still questioning the two men, who had taken three floors of the building on rent to operate their business, to establish the sequence of events that led to the devastating fire.

The charred building in Mundka. (Raj K Raj/HT)

Police arrested the two men -- Harish Goyal and his brother Varun Goyal -- on Friday and are on the lookout for the owner of the building, Manish Lakra, who allegedly managed to escape the fire with his family from the top-floor flat by climbing onto the roof of an adjacent building.

According to police, the Goyal brothers are also being questioned on the lack of fire safety arrangements in the place, despite nearly 250 employees working in their firm, and storage of inflammable materials in large quantities on the floors. Their father, Amarnath Goyal, is also feared dead in the fire, police said. Police said they would seek reports regarding violations pertaining to the building and the businesses running there from the fire department, civic body, trade department and other concerned departments.

Initial investigation revealed that the two brothers had taken three floors of the building on rent from Lakra to run their office and business of assembling and packaging CCTV cameras, Wi-Fi routers, and RO water purifiers. Police said they employed nearly 250 people, mostly women, who worked on the three floors from morning till evening.

The building was constructed illegally in 2010-11 by the Lakra family that lived on its top floor. Local residents told police that Lakra along with his mother, wife and two children climbed down from the terrace to the roof of an adjacent building using a rope.

“We have learnt that the two brothers had taken the first floor of the building on rent in 2018 to run their company’s office. Between 2019 and 2021, they took two more upper floors to run their office, assembling and packaging of the manufactured items and store the raw as well as package materials,” said additional commissioner of police (western range) Chinmoy Biswal.

“The company’s owner had invited two motivational speakers to have a meeting with the employees and encourage them to work hard to take the company to a new height. After lunch, all the employees were asked to attend the meeting on the second floor. We were in the meeting when the fire started from the first floor. We could not access the lone staircase as the blaze had engulfed it,” said Pushpa Panwar, a survivor who saved her life by climbing down the second floor using a hydra crane that the locals had placed to rescue the trapped occupants of the building.

According to the first information report (FIR) filed, submitted by an Inspector rank officer and seen by HT, 100 employees worked at the company out of which 50 were women who used to work from 10am to 7pm. However, employees of the company who survived said that there were more than 200 persons working at the company. “Due to a motivational programme, all the employees were on the second floor and when the fire broke out, they broke the glass at the front and jumped on the road but because of the fire. Many got stuck and couldn’t escape,” the FIR read.

The FIR also mentioned that there was only one exit from the building. A total of 39 Medico Legal Certificates have been mentioned in the document.

Fire Station Officer of Kirti Nagar, Ashok Kumar Sharma, who was leading the firefighting operation on Friday night said that the building also had an elevator but its car was on the ground floor when they went inside to douse the flames.

“Some charred bodies were lying near the lift’s access point on the second floor, suggesting that people may have tried to use it to get out of the building. The lift may have malfunctioned due to the fire or a short-circuit. Most of the charred bodies were on the second floor. A few of them were lying close to each other suggesting that the victims may have attempted together to save their lives. The scene inside the building was horrific,” said Sharma.

Delhi Fire Services (DFS) director Atul Garg said that the outer periphery of the building was made of glasses and the presence of inflammable items caused the fire to spread quickly. “The glasses shattered due to the blaze on the first floor and flames spread to the upper floors rapidly through the windows,” added Garg.