3 dead as man sets building afire

A 32-year-old man, his infant son and an elderly woman were killed in a blaze allegedly started by a 52-year-old man who wanted to kill his wife.

While his wife and children survived, his mother-in-law was charred to death.

The incident took place in the early hours of Saturday in West Delhi’s Palam. What initially looked like a case of accidental fire, later turned out to be a murder attempt after the police got clues from the closed circuit television cameras installed in the building compound.

A total of 23 people were in the building at the time of the blaze. Eight persons, including a fire officer, suffered burns injuries in the fire and are undergoing treatment at different hospitals. A few of them, including the suspect’s daughter, suffered fractures while jumping off balconies to escape.

The blaze was reported to the fire department at 3-10 a.m. Residents, however, claimed it had started almost an hour before.

“The CCTV footage revealed that a person lit the fire in the vehicles parked on the ground floor of the building,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (South-West) Suman Goyal.

He was identified as Anil Kumar, husband of Mamta, a woman who lived on the building’s ground floor. He was arrested in the evening and has confessed to having used petrol to set the basement on fire, said the police. The couple had a strained relationship and had moved into separate houses. Anil was living in a house in another area while his wife continued to live in that building with her two daughters and her 65-year-old mother Kailash Rana.

“The only exit from the building was through the parking space. This left the residents with no way to escape safely. While some people succeeded in escaping by climbing over to balconies of the neighbouring building, others jumped off their balconies. Jagdeep and his son Akshay could not escape. He tried to escape by rushing down the stairs of his flat, holding his son in his arm but when he saw that the fire below had left no escape route, he turned around to run up but slipped and fell. The father and son were burnt to death,” a police officer said.

A search of the building after dousing the fire led to the recovery of the charred body of a woman. She was later identified as Mamta’s mother Kailash Rana.

Nine motorcycles and two cars were among the things gutted in the blaze.