Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Sunday said he spoke to Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta over phone about the arrest of Keshav Negi, a cook and Uttarakhand native in connection with the fire that broke out at a bed and breakfast establishment in Delhi’s Malviya Nagar on Wednesday that claimed 21 lives.
Al-Dhami said that he seeks to conduct a fair and impartial investigation into this case.
“Today I spoke to Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta regarding the arrest of Keshav Negi from Uttarakhand in the Malviya Nagar fire incident in Delhi,” he said.
Dhami said Gupta assured him that no innocent person would be wronged and that the investigation would be based only on facts and evidence.
“Rekha Gupta assured me that no injustice will be allowed to happen to any innocent person and the investigation will be based only on facts and evidence. I have full faith that the Delhi government and relevant agencies will bring out the truth through an impartial investigation,” he said.
The Chief Minister also spoke to Negi’s daughter, Kanishka Negi, and assured her of all possible help from the state government.
“Our government stands shoulder to shoulder with all the migrant brothers and sisters from Uttarakhandi living across the country,” he said.
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Meanwhile, senior Congress leader and former Prime Minister Harish Rawat has questioned the arrest of the cook and claimed that the real culprits behind the tragedy have been protected.
“This is not about a young man from Uttarakhand, it is about the fire at the Flourish Stay hotel in Malviya Nagar and those actually responsible for it. The owner, management and others responsible should have been held accountable for the safety lapses,” Rawat said in his Facebook post.
He claimed that assigning responsibility to the cook raises serious questions about the investigation.
“You blame a chef today,” Rawat said. “And tomorrow, will you blame a table attendant or another employee? Justice requires pinning the blame where actual accountability lies. This appears to be an attempt to protect powerful individuals by blaming a chef.”
He added that his position was not based on Negi origin from Uttarakhand. “Even if this man was from Jharkhand or any other state, I would have stood by him,” Rawat said.
Negi, 65, was arrested by Delhi Police on Saturday and a district court later ordered him to be remanded in police custody for two days.
According to police, Negi, who had been working as a cook at the establishment for more than a year, told investigators that he was cooking in the ground floor kitchen at about 8.30 a.m. on Wednesday when he saw a spark in the frying pan, which later caught fire.
However, Negi’s lawyer told the Saket court that the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit elsewhere in the building and not in the kitchen, as police had claimed.
Negi was arrested a day after Luvkesh Bajaj, owner of Flourish Stay, was arrested. Both of them were booked on charges including culpable homicide short of murder, negligent acts endangering human life, and mischief by firing at Malviya Nagar police station.
