DMRC engineer, wife, daughter die in Mukundpur flat fire

The fire broke out at a fifth-floor DMRC residential flat around 2.39 am. Police suspect smoke knocked the family unconscious before they were burned.

A family of three, including a nine-year-old girl, died in a fire as they were sleeping after their heater allegedly exploded at a government accommodation in north Delhi’s Mukundpur early on Tuesday. With their bodies found still in bed and no signs of a struggle, police suspect they were first knocked unconscious by the smoke and then burned to death.

The family had been living in the DMRC colony since 2016. Ajay Vimal joined the organisation in 2006, officials said. (HT Photo)

Police identified the victims as 45-year-old Ajay Vimal, an assistant section engineer with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), his wife, Neelam (43), and daughter, Anvi.

The fire, at a fifth-floor one-bedroom flat in Metro Apartments, a residential colony for DMRC employees opposite Majlis Park Metro station, was reported at 2:39 am, police said.

Preliminary investigation suggests that the heater had exploded, though the exact cause will only be confirmed after a detailed forensic examination. “The circumstances leading to the fire are being thoroughly investigated,” the officer quoted above said.

A DMRC official who lives on the fourth floor said he was the first to realise that the fire had broken out. “I heard the glass break on the fifth floor and saw a lot of smoke. I rushed to the house and called others. We knocked on the door but received no response. We then used the in-house water ropes and tried to douse the fire from the window,” he said.

The police and fire department, he said, arrived around 3am. “By then, we had brought it under control. When they completely doused it and went inside, they found the bodies on the bed,” he added.

A police officer quoted above said they suspect that the family had been rendered unconscious by the smoke and then charred to death. “There was no struggle to save themselves,” the officer said.

Usha Devi, Ajay’s sister, said the family’s death comes closely after their father passed away last year. “Our mother died many years ago. Our father died on Raksha Bandhan last year. Now, my brother has died. It’s three of us sisters and a brother left.”

“His daughter was studying in a private school in class four and all three of them were extremely loving,” she said.

They had all met last Sunday when Ajay had invited them for a meal at his house. “We had spoken on video call two days ago. Everything was fine. We had celebrated his daughter’s birthday in March,” said Devi, 50. She lives in Noida.

The family, she said, is originally from Uttar Pradesh’s Etah.

In a statement, DMRC said the loss was a “heartbreaking moment” for the organisation. “In an incident of apparent fire reported from one of the flats in Delhi Metro’s residential colony at Mukundpur, DMRC has lost one of its colleagues. Despite immediate response efforts, the family members were found lifeless,” said the principal executive director, Anuj Dayal.

Ajay had joined the DMRC in 2006 and the family had been living in this house since 2016.