In a heart-wrenching tragedy, six infants were burnt alive in a devastating blaze that engulfed Baby Care New Born Hospital in the Vivek Vihar area of East Delhi.
According to the police, at the time of the incident, which took place late on Saturday night, there were 12 newborn babies at the medical facility. Of them, six infants could be rescued from the building inferno.
A child was already dead prior to the incident while six died after the fire broke out in the building and five are currently admitted to another hospital and are being treated.
The seven bodies of the deceased infants were sent to the nearby GTB Hospital for postmortem, the police added.
An inquiry has been initiated by the police into the matter while appropriate legal action is being taken against the owner of the facility by the Delhi Police.
The call about the fire initially landed at the Police Control Room (PCR) at 11:30 pm prompting immediate action by local authorities, including the SHO and ACP of Vivek Vihar.
The rescued infants were relocated at East Delhi Advanced NICU Hospital for treatment for special care.
The rescue operation was carried out with the help of locals and a team of Shaheed Bhagat SIngh Seva Dal, including Jitender Singh Shunty, a local social activist and politician, who reached the spot with their ambulances.
The infants were retrieved by the rescuers using ladders to reach out to them from back of the ill-fated building on fire with the help of the locals who had come forward for the rescue mission risking their own lives, local sources added.
According to the locals, who witnessed the ghastly incident, it all started with the sounds of blast jolting them out of sleep. Soon, the fire spread to an adjacent residential building. Within no time the entire place was engulfed by the raging blaze.
According to the Fire Department, a total of 16 fire tenders were rushed to the spot to fight the blaze which could be brought under control in about an hour’s time and was completely doused at 4 am, the Delhi Fire Services added.
The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained while the probe is on into the fire incident, the Delhi government announced a thorough inquiry into the incident.
Meanwhile, in another fire incident also reported from East Delhi on the intervening night of Saturday-Sunday, three dead while eleven others were injured. The fire broke out at a house in West Azad Nagar in the Krishna Nagar area.
Area SHO reached the spot along with his staff. Firefighting teams arrived soon after. While 13 injured victims were taken to the hospital with the help of ambulances and PCR Vans, three succumbed to their injuries.
On Saturday a massive fire also broke out at a factory in outer Delhi’s Mundka Industrial Area, the Fire Department said, adding that 27 fire department vehicles were sent on the spot to douse off the blaze. Specialised firefighting equipment, including a robot, was used in the operation to douse the fire.
It may be mentioned that earlier this week, a dead body of a man was recovered from a building that caught fire in the early morning hours on 20th May.
In another incident reported on May 20, a fire broke out at another garment showroom on Ajmal Khan Road in Karol Bagh.
During the past several days, multiple fire incidents have been reported from across the national capital, including the one at CR building in ITO on 14th May where an office superintendent lost his life, while a charred body of labourer was recovered from a paper godown in East Delhi’s Shakarpur where a fire broke out on 15th May.