4 killed in Palam apartment fire

Police said CCTV camera footage from the building showed Kumar, a driver, walk into the building around 2 am, a few minutes before the fire broke out.

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Kumar’s wife Mamta, her daughters Simran and Geetika and her mother Kilash Devi were living in the ground floor of the building, next to the parking lot. Kumar allegedly set a vehicle on fire and it quickly spread to other parts of the building, claiming four lives.

The dead were identified as Kailash Devi, Jagdeep (32), a medical representative living on second floor of the building, and his one-year-old son Akshay. The fourth body, that of a woman, is yet to be identified.

A senior police officer said, “We have registered a case of murder. Kumar claimed he was angry with his mother-in-law for interfering in his affairs and he was tired of living alone. He has been married for 20 years, but his wife and children were living with Kailash Devi since the last six years.”

The police control room was alerted about the fire around 2.45 am on Saturday. The fire services also received a call and a fire tender was rushed to the spot. Apart from the four dead, eight persons were taken to various government hospitals with burn injuries and wounds sustained when they jumped off balconies to escape the blaze. The building belongs to BJP councillor Kuldeep Solanki’s sister Rajesh. She had rented out the flats.

The 12 who to escaped said the fire first engulfed the vehicles in the parking lot— two cars and nine two-wheelers were gutted.

It spread to the floor above. E N Verma, a Class II master warrant officer at the Palam Air Force Station, had moved into a first-floor flat on Friday with his 25-year-old son. “My son woke up due to the smoke. We went to the balcony and saw the fire below. I helped my son over to the adjacent building’s balcony and then I jumped across.”

Many others climbed down the drainage pipe, police said.

Jagdeep was running down the stairs with his son Akshay when heavy smoke blinded him and he fell. He and the child were charred. His wife Indu, a software engineer, is admitted in LN hospital with 80 per cent burn injuries.

Simran’s bravery helped save many, but not her grandmom

Simran had her Class IX exams on Saturday. The 14-year-old was studying late into Friday night at her basement flat. She dozed off and woke up around 2.30 am to use the toilet when she saw a motorbike ablaze.

“I screamed and woke my mother Mamta, sister Geetu (19) and grandmother Kailash (60). I told them to run up the stairs because the front gate of the parking lot was locked and the whole place was on fire. I then sprinted up the stairs and began ringing the doorbells of each of the flats. One of the aunties on the third floor began weeping when I told her about the fire. I asked her to keep calm and I helped her and her little son to scale the two-three foot high balcony wall and jump to the adjacent building,” she said.

Simran too jumped onto the adjoining building and ran out to see her building engulfed by flames. “I saw police and ambulances and my mother covered in soot. I could not find my grandmother anywhere. My sister had jumped from one of the floors and broke her arm. Everyone was crying. I don’t know what happened. One minute, I saw a motorbike on fire, the next, the building was ablaze,” she said.

Her father, Anil Kumar, has been arrested for starting the fire, which claimed four lives. “My father does not live with us. I don’t want to talk about him. My brother studies in Class XII and is in a boarding school in Haryana. My grandmother used to live here in Palam Colony and my father a few km away, in Palam village. He used to often fight with my mother. We were tired of his ways.”

Police said Anil Kumar had came to the building in the dead of night with a bottle of petrol and set one of the motorbikes parked there on fire. He then fled the scene, police said.

Her grandmother Kailash could not climb up the stairs fast enough. She succumbed to burn injuries at the hospital by Saturday afternoon. A few hours later, her father too was arrested.