Ghaziabad Police on Saturday registered a criminal case against the builder in whose building a fire broke out on Friday. Inspector Rashid Ali told The Pioneer that the FIR was registered following a complaint by Jamit Kumar, a resident of ATS Advantage.
Jamit has named ATS chairman Anand Shah Talwar and General Manager (Facilities) Anil Jai Singh in his complaint.
No one was injured in the Friday blaze but goods worth crores were reportedly gutted. It took 16 fire tenders from Noida, Sahibabad and Ghaziabad about six hours to put out the blaze that sent plumes of black smoke into the afternoon sky. About half a dozen cars, building material, wooden furniture and other articles were gutted after the fire broke out in the basement of the upscale housing condominium adjoining Shipra Mall on Friday.
Ghaziabad’s Chief Fire Officer, AP Singh, blamed “human negligence” for the fire and said the tower did not have a no-objection certificate from the Fire Department. He added the cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained since there are no electric wires in the basement that were being used to dump unused wooden furniture and building material, besides parking cars. The labourers used the basement as shelter where they also cooked their meals.
Changes in both modern buildings and the cars we drive are pushing architects and specifiers to look at how fire protection is applied to underground car parks.