HYDERABAD: Three members of a family, including a five-year-old child, were charred to death in their apartment at Sai Nagar of Kushaiguda, as a fire that started in an adjacent timber depot spread to their three-storied building on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday.
Officials said the fire broke out around 3 am at the Aditya Sai Timber Depot and by 3.45 am, it spread to the adjacent building, burning the main door and blocking the exits for the victims, who lived on the second floor.
The Rachakonda police inspected the scene, sealed the timber depot and arrested its owner and his brother, booking them under Section 304 (A) of the Indian Penal Code for causing death due to negligence. They later added sections of the Explosives Act and also took in six depot employees for questioning.
The victims’ bodies were shifted to Gandhi Hospital for autopsies.
According to the sequence of events shared by the police, the victims, Retnaini Naresh, his wife Suma and their second son Jaswanth, tried to enter the bathroom as the fire intensified. However, two LPG cylinders stored at the depot also exploded, between 4.20 am and 4.50 am, trapping the trio in the bathroom as the house exploded.
Officials of the fire department said that a short circuit may have started the fire. “We received a call at 4.02 am, and reached there by 4.07 am, 15 seconds after we heard a blast from the timber depot. Firefighters managed to reach the third-floor terrace and rescue one person,” said Shekar Reddy, Cherlapally Station Fire Officer (SFO).
Around 20 DRF personnel, firefighters and police personnel of the Malkajgiri special zone barricaded the road till the fire was controlled and evacuated those living in the vicinity.
Shekar Reddy said they could not enter the first and second floors of the apartment due to the high temperature.
“The fire was controlled within an hour but our firefighters were not able to enter the first and second floors. By the time they reached, the victims had already died,” the SFO said.
Home minister Mohammed Mahmood Ali, who visited the relatives of the victims later on Sunday, told Deccan Chronicle that he will discuss the issue of compensation with the Chief Minister.
“We will take stern action against the negligence of the timber depot and the entire timber depots that are located in residential areas will be vacated or seized,” the home minister said.
While Shekar Reddy was not willing to confirm the cause of the fire, sources said that the depot workers used LPG cylinders to heat-treat fresh blocks of wood. They said a worker may have thrown a cigarette or match stick carelessly, which may have led to the incident.
The victim’s family members said that Naresh worked as a petrol tanker driver with HP. He married Suma in 2014 and they had two sons. Their elder son, seven-year-old Atvik, is residing with his uncle G. Veerender in VN Colony of Kushaiguda.
“Naresh is my only son and was taking care of my wife Bhadrama’s cancer treatment. She is not in a position to visit; I also did not tell her about the deaths. My daughter-in-law and grandson were very close to me,” said Retnaini Jangaiah, Naresh’s father.
Meanwhile, the owner of the three-storied apartment building the family was living in, Ramchander, said the area residents had been requesting the depot owner, Shiva Sai, to relocate his unit for the past 25 years as the sound pollution was affecting around 300 families residing in the area.
“We have given a representation to the local representatives as well, but he refused to listen to them either,” Ramchander said.
He said that while the fire was a large one, a quick response by the watchman’s daughter, Konda Uma, helped evacuate other residents of the building and those in nearby apartments too.
Uma, who was awake around 2.50 am to use the washroom, said she noticed smoke emanating from the depot around 3 am and that she raised the alarm.
“My elder brother, Shiva, and I first went to owner Ramchander’s apartment on the third floor and informed him. Then, I knocked the doors of Suresh uncle’s house and on the third floor and then knocked the door of Naresh uncle and Suma aunty but there was no response,” Uma said.
She said that even as the fire was raging, families managed to escape, but the situation was compounded due to multiple blasts from outdoor units of air-conditioners installed at Raymonds Venkateshwara showroom in the vicinity.
“At 3.50 am, I received a call from Naresh uncle. He was crying for help and asked me to save him. I asked him to exit the apartment with his family through the balcony, as there is an alternate staircase on the rear side, but it was too late. His phone was then switched off,” she said.
Residents of Jyothi Acropolis Apartments located nearby said they exited their apartments through balconies, by tying together sarees and then climbing down an iron ladder from the first floor of the building.
“We are grateful to the Konda Uma, who alerted us on time. Otherwise, we would have died,” said Bhavesh, a Rajasthan native, who managed to escape by scaling the sarees and ladder along with his daughters Riya and Priyanka, and wife Sureka.
As the rescue operations were underway, locals also made makeshift arrangements to rescue people from the victims’ apartments.
There were three workers at the timber depot when the fire started, but they did not notice it immediately as their two rooms are on the other side of the building. “We were asleep. Around 3.20 am, we saw a huge fire and vacated our room, leaving behind our belongings,” Retten Sunil, a native of Uttar Pradesh, said.
Locals, meanwhile, said that six two-wheelers parked near Raymond’s showroom were completely gutted and the apartment complex of the victims was damaged severely, with electric boards gutted.
G. Kartik, a resident of the area, said that the fire was contained before it reached a Castrol godown, where drums of oil, fuel and other combustible chemicals are stored, failing which the damage to property and loss of lives would have been more severe.
The police said they are yet to assess the property damage and loss due to the fire.
