A 55-year-old woman, Anita Singh, died after a five-storey apartment building in east Delhi’s Shakarpur caught fire on Tuesday, the police said.
An officer said a portion of the building caught fire around 1 a.m. and soon engulfed the first floor. Ms. Singh, a resident of a fourth-floor apartment, died of asphyxiation, he added.
Preliminary inquiry indicated that the fire broke out due to a short circuit in the ground-floor parking lot, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) Amrutha Guguloth. “The fire started from the parking area and soon engulfed the first floor. The residents in the above floors sustained injuries due to excessive heat and smoke,” she added.
According to a senior Delhi Fire Service official, 31 people were trapped inside the burning building. “While five of them jumped off their balconies to save themselves, the rest were escorted out of the building by firefighters,” the official said. The injured persons, including a fireman, were rushed to Lal Bahadur Shastri, Guru Teg Bahadur and Hedgewar hospitals, he added.
An FIR under Section 304A (causing death by negligence) and Section 337 (causing hurt by endangering life or personal safety) of the IPC has been registered, the police said.
