Delhi: 1 dead, 1 suffers 90% burns in fire at Kishangarh flat

A 16-year-old boy died and four members of his family—parents and two siblings—were injured in a fire at their fourth-floor flat in Kishangarh, near Vasant Kunj, in the early hours of Wednesday, police said. One of the injured persons suffered 90% burns and is being treated at AIIMS, they said.
Police said they are yet to identify the cause of the fire and suspect it may have been caused by a short circuit in electric wiring or due to leakage from an oil lamp. Police said most household items, including beds, furniture, clothes and kitchen appliances, worth a few lakhs of rupees, were gutted in the fire.
Delhi Fire Services (DFS) chief Atul Garg said that upon receiving information about the fire at 3.22am, they sent two fire tenders to the house at Shani Bazar Road in Kishangarh. “Around 6am, the firefighting operation in-charge informed that the fire was in a room on the fourth floor of the building. A blast occurred, injuring four people,” Garg said.
The deceased was identified as Akash Mandal and the critically injured person as Sunny Mandal, 22, who is being treated at the AIIMS Trauma Centre. The other three family members, who are undergoing treatment at Safdarjung Hospital, were identified as Laxmi Mandal,42, his wife Anita Mandal,40, and their third son Deepak Mandal, 20. Police said the three of them were stable.
“Two fire tenders and three police vans reached the spot. With joint efforts of all agencies, the fire was controlled. All household articles were gutted in the entire house. Five injured people, including a woman, were taken to two hospitals in police vans. One person was facing difficulty in breathing,” Choudhary said.
Police said the deceased was a student, and his siblings worked as delivery executives for a quick delivery app service.
“Initially, it was suspected that the fire broke out due to leakage in a cooking gas (LPG) cylinder but when the flat was inspected, the cylinder was found intact. The exact reason for the fire is still not known. We are trying to ascertain it. Accordingly, necessary legal action would be taken into the matter,” DCP Choudhary said.
Locals in the area said that inflammable chemicals used to prepare improvised firecrackers was stored in the house and may have caused the explosion, but police refuted the claims, saying they did not find any trace of chemical or firecracker on the apartment premises.