After the deadly fire in hotel Arpit Palace in central Delhi gobbled up 17 precious lives and left 35 baldy injured on Tuesday morning, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) questioned the negligence in safety measures and accused the municipal corporation for utter carelessness.
“Every time there is a horrific incident in Delhi killing innocent people, we talk about negligence by some departments, we speculate about fixing the responsibility, but there is hardly any change in situation. The hotel has five floors with fibre structure on the top floor. How did authority issued approval for such building plan? If there was no approval issued, how could such hotel operate? How could they get certificate to operate from MCD? Will Delhi ever see a Commissioner of MCD or chief of fire being suspended for such huge loss of innocent human lives?,” said Saurabh Bharadwaj, AAP spokesperson.
Adding further, he said, recently petitions committee visited a private school named Indian School where school had constructed a totally illegal basement and fourth floor. As per records of MCD and fire department, the school does not have a basement or fourth floor. The fourth floor was made of exactly same fibre material which was used in hotel of Karolbagh.
“The fire department found not even single ventilation in basement because it was being concealed from authorities. Such is a sad state of affairs that no action could be taken against the school as the elected Government does not have a power to do so, but the Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) who have the power do not a have an accountability,” added Bharadwaj.
Delhi Congress president Sheila Dikshit also demanded the Delhi Government to constitute a committee to probe the fire incident at Karol Bagh in which 17 people including a women and a child died. Expressing shock over the incident, Sheila met the family members of the 18 people who died in the major fire broke out, demanded for special enquiry committee to be formed to find out the reasons behind the incident. “The guilty must be punished, but the immediate task should be to console and join in the grief of those families who have lost their near and dear ones in the fire,” she said.
Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari said that the incident of fire and the deaths in Arpit Hotel Karol Bagh is very tragic and I express my condolences. May the souls of the deceased persons rest in peace and I pray to God that the injured persons recover soon. We will try to ensure that an impartial inquiry is held and the guilty persons are punished. Delhi BJP will keep an eye on the process of ensuring stern punishment to the guilty persons.
Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta demanded judicial enquiry into the tragedy. “Loss of 17 precious lives is a very serious matter. But CM Kejriwal is unfortunately, taking it lightly and doing only cosmetic exercise. It is evident from the fact that reached the place of tragedy six to seven hours after the incident occurred and assured only low key enquiry,” said Gupta.