Cylinder blast kills four of family in east Delhi

Case against houseowner, kin for running ‘illegal’ business

Four members of a family died while one survived following a cylinder blast in Shahdara’s Farsh Bazar on Tuesday night. The blast happened in the adjacent room where a cylinder business was being run by the houseowner’s relative.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) R. Sathiyasundaram said that a case has been registered under Section 285 (negligent conduct with respect to fire or combustible matter), 304A (causing death by negligence), and 34 (common intension) of the Indian Penal Code against the houseowner and his niece “who run a gas, kerosene stove and small cylinder stoves repairing shop in the front portion of the house”.

Nine fire tenders

Delhi Fire Services chief Atul Garg said the call was received at 12.12 a.m. and nine fire tenders were pressed into service.

Recalling the incident, surviving member Lal Chand (27) said that his mother Munni Devi (45), younger brothers Om Prakash (22) and Naresh (20) and sister Suman (18) were in their one-room rented accommodation and while the three had slept around 11.45 a.m., Lal Chand and his brother Om were using their phones. “Our mother asked us to sleep and I said okay. We kept the phone aside and a few minutes later, we heard the blast in the next room and within seconds, there was fire all over. The wall of the front portion also collapsed,” he said.

Lal Chand said he cried out for help a few times but the rest of his family members had lost consciousness. “I was near the window and was breathing into the glass which was finally broken by a friend who saved my life,” he said.

The 27-year-old alleged that locals told him that the houseowner, who lives right opposite, had asked the family not to come out to avoid another possible cylinder blast,” he said.

Neighbour rescues

Lal Chand’s friend and neighbour Raj (30) said that he heard the blast and ran towards the house.

“I saw Lal Chand at the window and we immediately cut the window after which we pulled him out. His skin had come off and he had been burnt badly,” said Raj, adding that the other three members had already died and one was breathing with difficulty.

The police said that all were moved to Dr Hedgewar Hospital where they were declared dead due to suffocation followed by smoke inhalation. None of the deceased had burn injuries, they said.

Dividing wall

Lal Chand said that the house owner’s nephew was running a cylinder business in the front part of their residence while they lived in the rear, only a wall dividing the two. Locals alleged that the business was running illegally.

An injured Lal Chand cried as he was the only surviving member in his family now. He had lost his father 11 months ago in a car accident in Kanpur when the latter was going to attend the last rites of his mother. “Now, I am all alone,” he wept.

Lal Chand sells food on a cart opposite a mall in East Delhi. His brother Om Prakash worked at a shop nearby and Naresh worked as an insurance agent.

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