A charred body of a 19-year-old man was recovered on Thursday morning from the second floor of a shop in east Delhi's Gandhi Market where a major blaze broke out on Wednesday evening. It took nearly 10 hours for the firefighters to douse the flames, fire officials said, adding a short circuit might have caused the inferno. As per family members, the deceased has been identified as Shehnawaj, however, since the body is charred completely, DNA profiling would also be conducted to ascertain the identity of the victim, police said.
According to Atul Garg, the Director, Delhi Fire Service (DFS), around 35 fire tenders and 150 firefighters controlled the blaze which broke out around 5.40 PM on Wednesday and the fire was extinguished at 3.30 AM. “A charred body was found on the second floor of the building on Thursday morning following the blaze broke that broke out in Jai Ambe garments shop.
“The fire quickly spread to other nearby shops due to storage of synthetic cloths,” said R Sathiyasundaram, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Shahdara district. “All senior officers were on the spot including police personnel of Gandhi Nagar sub-divison and DCP Reserve.Civil defence personnel were also deployed to bring the fire under control,” said the DCP.
According to police, one of the workers identified as Aftab (32), stated that he has been working at the Jai Ambe garments shop for the last 12 years. “After closing the shop on Wednesday at about 5- 5.15 pm, he along with four other workers went near main road. After five-seven minutes, they came back towards Janta lane which is another entry towards the shop, when they saw smoke emitting from their shop,” said a senior police official “He immediately called his owner and went near the shutter where he realised that his brother Shehnawaj was trapped inside and he also heard the voice of him knocking the door,” said the senior police official. “They attempted to break the locks and told his brother to go upstairs. However, by the time they broke the lock, the fire had spread and his brother was not traceable," the senior police officer said.
The fire started in a shop in the Nehru lane where mainly garments and hosiery outlets are located and it soon spread to other adjacent shops. “When the fire vehicle reached the spot, the operation was impeded by narrows lanes and the absence of a water source nearby. The fire tenders had to be parked far away from the site,” said Garg, the chief fire officer.
“Crime team and forensic team will inspect scene of incident once the heat generated is down,” police said, adding short circuit is suspected to be the reason behind the fire.