Hotel fire: Security lapses led to 17 deaths

Prateek Chauhan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 12

At least 17 persons, including three women and a child, died in a massive fire that broke out at Arpit Palace Hotel and Crossroads Restaurant located at Karol Bagh around 4.35 am today.

Around 120 people were inside the hotel when smoke engulfed the entire building.

A child and two persons, who jumped out of the window to escape fire, are yet to be identified, a police official said. Most of the victims were sleeping when the incident happened and many of them died of suffocation and burn injuries.

 "I found that smoke was billowing out from the top floor of the building and few people were running in shelter just outside of the building, said Hiten Tomar, a tea stall owner nearby the hotel who saw the flame and informed the Karol Bagh Police Station about the incident.

Initially, three fire tenders reached the spot around 4.43 am, but by then smoke had engulfed the entire building, Tomar said, adding that people were heard screaming inside the hotel.

The police registered an FIR against the hotel management and have detained general manager of the hotel Rajender and manager Vikas. Owner of the hotel Subendhu Goyel has fled away, said DCP MS Randhawa. The case has been registered under Sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide) of the IPC, he said.

Twenty-three fire tenders were pressed into services to bring the flame under control.

The four-story hotel has 65 rooms. The fire started on the first floor and spread to the other floors.

The people who woke up saved their lives, rest got caught in fire, said DFS officer Sunil Chaudhary.

"The hotel didn't have any fire safety measures and didn't have an emergency exit route also. All the windows of the rooms got jammed because they were not opened for long time due to centralised AC system," he said.

There was wooden paneling on corridors because of which people could not use corridor to escape, he said.

There was encroachment on the narrow emergency exit gate causing obstruction for the victims to leave the hotel, he said.

Some of the injured also initially could not notice the exit gate because of thick smoke, the official said. Fire officials, therefore, had to use ladders to break the windows to reach the hotel rooms, he added.

There were more than hundred guests in the 65-room hotel, which had a canopy on the terrace what appeared to be a restaurant, the official said.