Pramesh S Jain
It was a tragic death for 33-year-old Sangeetha and her two children who were charred to death while sleeping at home situated at the third floor of the Krishna complex in the wee hours of Saturday.
Even though the trio was sleeping,Madan Kumar,38,who worked in the ground floor had locked the house from outside and came to work hence making them difficult to escape the fire,a senior officer said.
The trio suspected to have suffocated to the heavy smoke and died before they are charred to death as the fire engulfed the house later .
The ground and first floor has godown facility where Madan used to store plastic and household articles, while the second floor has few people living and they escaped by running into the terrace and jumping into the adjacent building .
However Suresh Kumar,26,an employee staying in the second floor could not escape and died in the sleep and rescue team recovered his charred body .
The building constructed in the 36 by 57 feet area in the narrow lane was also had very narrow stairs to climb up the building.This had made difficult for the fire and emergency personnel to reach to the third floor .
The heart and smoke caused due to the fire also caused hinderance to the rescue operation which took almost 12 hours to complete the fire .
The police have identified the victims as Madan Singh (38) and Sangeetha (33)and their two children Rithesh (7) and Vihaan (5) and neighbour Suresh Kumar (26).
Madan Singh was a native of Rajasthan and had been renting the building for nearly 10 years.He ran a small manufacturing unit that made plastic kitchen items as well as mats and steel kitchen utensils.The police said an electric spark could have triggered the fire.
A fire department official said they received the call at around 3.14 am.Eight vehicles were deployed along with 55 firefighters and 21 officers were at the scene trying to control the fire.
Since the fire broke out at the unit containing plastic and packing material,the fire spread fast and since it was wee hours and no other were around,the fire spread rapidly covering the entire building,a fire official,said .
The fire officials used the adjacent building to reach the top and since the fire tenders could not reach near the spot, the rescue team had to use additional hose pipes to pump the water to douse the fire .
The herculean task is to bring the fire under control in the narrowly built structure,the heat and smoke hindered the rescue operations for several hours he added.
Home Minister,G Parameshwa,visited the spot and took stock of the situation, said that there are thousands of residential building built up on the congested and narrow by-lanes and many of them are converted into shop cum residential premises. He further said that the BBMP officials are verifying on the trade license and possible building violations .
Even though short circuit is suspected to be the reason for the fire mishap,the FSL,BESCOM and SOCO officials probing to ascertained the exact cause of the fire .
Meanwhile the police are on the lookout for the building owner,who rented out the premises and presently on the run. Efforts re on to track down them to check the documents and take legal action against them under death due to negligence.
Residents in the adjacent building were watching the fire from their terrace helplessly as fire and rescue team struggle to contain the fire . “
We knew that there was a family struck inside the house and we could not reach to their help”,a man from the neighbourhood,said .
Majority of buildings in the area has similar business cum residential set ups and now facing the hear as BBMP officials based on the home minister’s instructions stepped up the probe to check for the trade license and building violations .
