61 hurt as fire breaks out in Mukherjee Nagar building

Sixty-one students were injured while trying to escape a four-storey commercial building occupied by hundreds when a fire on the ground floor a little after 12pm filled the upper storeys with smoke in north Delhi's Mukherjee Nagar on Thursday afternoon, police said.

- Shiv Sunny

The building, Bhandari House located in Batra Complex, is one of several commercial buildings leaning on each other in Mukherjee Nagar. Much of the business here revolves around coaching centres that have mushroomed in the vicinity. The building which caught fire is constructed over a roughly 300 square yard plot and includes a basement, ground floor, and four upper floors. At least two large coaching centres, a bunch of smaller institutes, a library, an office, and some shops are among the establishments operating out of the complex located less than 4km from the Delhi university's North Campus.

The injured included mostly students who either fell while attempting to climb down the building with the help of ropes, pipes, and cables from the top floors, or were hurt in a stampede while trying to escape the smoke, police said.

"Most injuries were relatively minor. Those who fell early suffered more serious injuries, but all are likely to survive. About 11 of them will continue to remain hospitalised through the night," said Jitendra Meena, deputy commissioner of police (northwest).

No fire clearance

The fire department said the coaching centres in the building did not have a fire no-objection certificate (NOC), simply because no coaching centres ever applied for one.

"There is no clarity on which agency regulates coaching centres, because of which no one has ever applied for an NOC with us," said Atul Garg, director, Delhi Fire Services.

Garg, as well as students and eyewitnesses, said that the fire began in electric meters installed along the staircase on the ground floor. However, Tata Power Limited -- the discom that supplies electricity in north Delhi said that on-ground team inspection and prima facie probe showed that the smoke started from the air-conditioning unit on the fourth floor, and not around the electricity meters.