Fire: Absconding Delhi building owner arrested

New Delhi, May 15

The Delhi Police today said it had arrested the owner of the building in the Mundka area of the national capital where a massive fire on Friday night claimed lives of at least 27 persons.

Editorial: The Delhi inferno

“We received information that Manish Lakra was going towards Haridwar. We laid a trap and nabbed him from Ghevra Mod after conducting multiple raids in Delhi and Haryana,” said Sameer Sharma, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer). Lakra had been on the run since the fire incident, he added.

The police said Lakra used to live on the fourth floor of the same building. He managed to escape to the adjacent premises along with his family members when the fire broke out. The police have found 27 bodies so far and identified 14 of them as women and six as men, they said. Nineteen persons are missing, while 17 others were injured in the incident, they said. The building belonged to Lakra’s father, who died in 2015, leaving it to him, they said. A CCTV camera and router manufacturing and assembling company, in whose office the fire is believed to have started, had been functioning on the premises since 2017. Its owners—Harish and Vijay Goel—have already been arrested.

A motivational programme was underway on the second floor of the building when the fire broke out. A father-son duo from Australia was conducting the session, the police said, adding that the event was organised by the company and all its employees were present.

Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal has approved the announcement of a magisterial inquiry into the Mundka building fire by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and has given the time of six weeks to complete the task, officials said today.

The officials said the District Magistrate (West) will probe lapses and recommend action against the errants. The fire ripped through a four-storey building in outer Delhi’s Mundka on May 13.