A fire broke out in a five-storey residential building in southeast Delhi’s Tughlaqabad area around 2.30 am on Friday, killing three members of a family and seriously injuring two others while most of the residents were asleep, police and local residents said.
The building offered almost no exit, according to a senior fire department official, who requested to remain anonymous. Ten apartments are grouped on a plot of 100 square yards (900 sq ft), two on the first floor. The roof remained closed. There were no fire exits, no ventilation, and no fire safety equipment. The basement houses a plastic warehouse.
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Rescuers said the narrow design left no room for smoke to dissipate once the fire spread, trapping those on the upper floors. The three dead were residents of the fourth floor.
Hemant Tiwari, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast), said that a preliminary investigation indicates that the fire started on the ground floor due to an electrical short circuit. “The fire is suspected to have spread rapidly after it engulfed seven parked two-wheelers, including an electric motorcycle that was being charged at the time,” he said, but did not clarify whether it was the electric vehicle or its charger that caused the fire.
The police stressed that this is a preliminary assessment and that the exact cause will not be determined until after a forensic examination.
A senior officer familiar with early clues from the investigation said the fire appeared to have started from an electric scooter.
A case has been registered against an unidentified person under Sections 106(1) (causing death by negligence) and 287 (negligent conduct in relation to fire) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at Govindpuri police station.
Independent residential buildings in the capital are not allowed to exceed five floors, making the building where Friday’s incident occurred illegal. He was also in a colony classified as UR, or unauthorized/regular – a classification of a previously unauthorized colony that has been regularized in recent years.
This fire is the third fatal building safety failure in the capital in just two weeks, each in a building operating outside the rules. On May 30, a building in Sidulagab collapsed due to two floors being illegally raised above four floors, killing six people. On June 3, a fire at Hou’s Rani B&B that ran 25 rooms versus a sanctioned six — with no fire escape and a permanently boarded-up facade — killed 23 people.
The death of three people on Friday brings the death toll in the three locations to 32.
Tughlaqabad Extension, across the road from Tara Apartments, is an area of narrow lanes lined with five- and six-storey buildings, most of which have commercial premises on the ground floor.
The building was nothing special for the neighborhood, and for similar colonies across the capital, where millions live in settlements like Tughlaqabad Extension — dense, low-cost and built on small plots of land, many of which have their origins in unauthorized colonies that have not been brought up to code. Their streets are lined with buildings packed wall to wall, served by single narrow stairs, and often with enclosed balconies or built over them. Many of these lanes are too narrow for a firefighting vehicle to enter.
The police control room received the PCR call at 2.31 am, Tiwari said. Local crews, four CATS fire engines and ambulances were rushed to the scene, but heavy smoke had already engulfed the building, making the evacuation difficult. “Eight residents trapped inside were recovered and shifted to AIIMS Safdarjung Hospital and Trauma Centre,” he said. According to police, there were between 15 and 20 people inside the building at the time of the incident.
The dead were identified as Sushila Devi (70 years old); her grandson Pankaj Pandey, 28; and her granddaughter, Sonny, 20. Her 18-year-old granddaughter, Mani, and her 50-year-old daughter remain in critical condition.
The number of casualties could have been much higher had it not been for the neighbors who billowed smoke to get people out. Among them was Renu Bhutani, 45, who was awake and watching television when the fire broke out. She and her son, who lives on the next street, reached the burning roof of the building from the balcony of the adjacent two-story building.
With about three floors between the two roofs, they tied two wooden ladders together to bridge the gap and climbed across, while two more secured the ladders from below.
The roof door was locked. “My son had to break it with a rock,” Bhutani said. They punctured the building’s water tanks, doused themselves in the heat and smoke, and entered the fifth floor, where they knocked into an apartment and extracted two girls who were trapped inside.
Neighbors said Pankaj and his family were on the fourth floor balcony in front of the building and called for help for about 40 minutes before they collapsed. The police and fire department declined to comment on the duration, only confirming that the family was asking for help.
His uncle Suresh Chand Pandey said Pankaj bought the flat in 2024. “He really wanted to buy the house for his mother and sisters, and he did that,” he said. He took care of them all, by educating them, and saving for their marriage as well.”
Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta posted on To provide timely support and assistance.”
