In a joint operation, the Delhi Police and the Fire Department rescued three of a family trapped in a building fire in south Delhi’s Greater Kailash-1 on Friday morning, said officials.
Two policemen climbed to the third floor of the building to rescue the three persons — Amit Sudhakar [56], his wife Shalini [48], and mother Sudha [87].
A senior officer said they got a call at 6.55 a.m. that a fire had broken out at second and third floors of the building. DCP (South) Atul Kumar said: “The balcony, in which the family was trapped, was covered with iron grills.”
Greater Kailash police station SHO Ritesh Sharma said a member of an RWA, Lalit, called him and informed him about the fire. The fire department said they got the call at 6.53 a.m. and immediately reached the spot.
The fire started on the second floor of the building and soon reached the upper floor, Mr. Sharma said.
“After the call, I immediately reached the spot with my team. We saw that a massive fire had broken out on the second floor of the building. We checked and found that there was no person on it and also on the lower floors of the building. Only one caretaker was on the second floor, but he had left the building timely. However, we were informed that some persons were shouting for help from the backside of the building,” Mr. Sharma said.
We then saw a family of three trapped in a balcony on the third floor.
“We first asked them to stand on the opposite side in the balcony from where the smoke was coming. There were grills at every floor. The first major issue was an electricity pole near the building. There was only two feet gap between the pole and the building, and the personnel passed through the narrow area to climb up. Head constable Munni Lal and constable Sandeep climbed to the third floor of the building,” he said.
Mr. Sharma added that other personnel too wanted to climb but “we feared that the grill might fall due to weight of too many persons”. “Lal and Sandeep tried to break the grills but could not succeed,” he said, adding that after the fire tenders doused the blaze, the three persons were rescued from near the stairs.
The reason for the blaze unclear, said officials.
