Delhi fire: Owners of tuition centres, building under lens

Two officials of the coaching centres in Mukherjee Nagar were arrested on Friday on charges of negligence

Two officials of the coaching centres operating out of the commercial building that caught fire in north Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar on Thursday afternoon were arrested on Friday on charges of negligence, the Delhi Police said, adding that they were later released on bail.

Security personnel outside the coaching centre where the fire broke out on Thursday, in Mukherjee Nagar in New Delhi on Friday. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

Jitendra Meena, deputy commissioner of police (north-west), identified the arrested people as Shivesh Mishra, 45, and Shyam Sunder Bharti, 54. “Mishra is the chief operating officer (CEO) of Sanskrit IAS coaching, and SS Bharti is the owner of Bharti Concept maths coaching,” said Meena.

DCP Meena said that prima facie, owners, and officials of the coaching centres were found to be negligent. “They had not taken sufficient measures to prevent incidents of fire or the rescue after in case of such blazes,” said Meena.

The fire at the five-storey building, Bhandari House, at Batra Complex in Mukherjee Nagar, left 61 students injured while hundreds on the upper floors were forced to rappel down with the help of ropes and cables in a desperate bid to escape.

Police said the initial probe suggested there were over 500 students in the building at the time of the blaze, although half of them were in the basement and managed to escape easily soon after the fire began due to a fault in the electric meter board installed on the ground floor.

The DCP said that while 11 students were hospitalised through the night, only four continued to remain admitted on Friday evening.

The DCP said that nine officials, including owners and officials of coaching centres, as well as a relative of one of the owners of the building, were questioned on Friday.

“Each floor of the building is owned by different people. We have called all of them for questioning, and the son of those owners was among the nine interrogated today,” Meena said.

It was after the questioning that Mishra and Bharti were arrested. Police said that while the Sanskriti IAS operates out of the top two floors, Bharti Concept was on the floor below them. “Students of both the institutes were trapped in the fire,” said the DCP.

Meena said that the statements of 12 students and four staff members of the coaching institutes too have been recorded as part of the investigation. Apart from sections on fire due to negligence, police also added criminal conspiracy and criminal acts done by several persons with a common intent of the Indian Penal Code to the FIR.

Police, however, said that there was no immediate evidence to suggest that the fire was intentional. But the probe, officers said, was around aspects like the wiring in the building, whether it was capable of handling the load of appliances like multiple air-conditioners, whether the safety norms were in place, and if the firefighting equipment was functional or not.

Police said they were additionally probing if it was legal to operate a coaching institute out of the basement of the building even as 250-odd students at the basement escaped unhurt.

While students alleged that the coaching classes in this building were packed beyond capacity, Kumar Gaurav, a teacher with Sanskriti IAS coaching refuted the allegations. “The institute has a capacity of 300-400 students, but there were around 200 students when the incident took place,” Gaurav said.

The teacher added that the institutes in the market were equipped with firefighting systems. “Ever since the Gujarat coaching tragedy, we were required to have the necessary firefighting arrangements. That is why we were able to bring out fire extinguishers to fight the flames,” said the teacher.

However, senior fire officers said that coaching institutes are not legally required to have a fire no objection certificate (NOC). “What is clear is that the coaching institutes, not just in this building but across Delhi, do not have fire NOC simply because they are not legally required to have them. The coaching institutes are not regulated, because of which there is no law for them to have fire NOC,” said Atul Garg, director of Delhi Fire Services.

Meanwhile, deputy mayor Aaley Iqbal had on Thursday said the Municipal Corporation of Delhi will probe all buildings in the area and take action in case of violations.

HT reached out to Mishra and Bharti on the phone numbers found on the internet but there was no response.