Police probe whether heater at Pitampura building led to fire

On Thursday evening around 8pm, Sahil Gupta, 30, scrambled up the stairs to the terrace of the four-story building he lives in to check the origin of a suspected fire, moments after he saw smoke emanating from the building.

- Hemani Bhandari

NEW DELHI:  As soon as he realised that the situation was more perilous than he perceived, he rushed downstairs to inform his family so they could evacuate the building.

However, his parents and sister, who were inside the second-floor house, could not escape because the door was jammed. The fire had rapidly consumed parts of the building, in ZP Block, Pitampura, even as smoke shrouded the stairway-the only escape route for the residents.

Sahil's parents-Rakesh and Renu, both 62- and his sister Shweta Gupta, 30, were among the six people who died in the tragedy on Thursday. The other three deceased were sisters Shanu Verma, 27, and Kriti Verma, 25, and their cook Santosh Kumar, 25.

According to the police, the six victims-five of them tenants died of asphyxiation after a fire broke out on the upper ground floor of the building, suspected to have begun due to a room heater left unattended. A senior police officer confirmed that a heater was recovered from the house on the upper ground floor, occupied by the owners of the building Subhash Gupta, his wife Mamta Gupta, both in their early 50s and their house help. HT could not verify the name and age of the help.

The couple's son and daughter in-law live on the first floor and were in Mumbai when the incident occurred. Subhash, who runs a utensils factory, was at work and had not returned home.

Manju Saluja, 50, who lives in an adjacent building, said that Mamta had taken the help to see a doctor because he was unwell, which was when the fire broke out. "When she returned, the help first went inside the building and rushed out immediately.