VALUABLE HOUSEHOLD articles were reduced to ashes in house owned by one Vashishtha Verma, a resident of 8/5EWS colony, Baghambari Road in Allahpur.
The fire was caused by a spark in the TV set. Two distress calls made to the city fire service were ignored, alleged Verma. No help arrived even more than seven hours later. Residents of the area somehow managed to douse the flames with buckets of water. However, Verma had already suffered substantial loss of property by then.
Varma told Hindustan Times on phone that he made the first call around 12.10 pm. “We kept waiting in the hope that help was on its way. However, when nobody turned up, we decided to act ourselves. It took us more than two hours to enter the rooms which had caught fire,” said Varma who appeared to be in a state of shock due to reckless handling of the situation by the fire brigade.
Around three when he called up again, to his shock and disbelief, he was told by the man answering the call that it was time for duty change over.