A 40-year-old woman and her two daughters, 8 and 12, died after a fire broke out in their third-floor apartment in PK Dutt Colony near Lodhi Colony in south Delhi on Tuesday morning, police and fire officials said.
The bodies of the woman and her two daughters were found inside the one-room apartment on the third floor of a three-storey building. The second floor is occupied by other members of the family. Her husband, Mohit Sharma, a lawyer who practices at the Delhi High Court and Tis Hazari Court, and her mother-in-law, Sarita Sharma, were on the second floor when the fire broke out, officials said.
Three fire engines were pressed into service after the Delhi Fire Services (DFS) control room received a call at 10.21 am reporting a fire at a house in B-Block, BK Dutt Colony. Officials said the fire was under control by 11.10 am. A senior official in the Field Support Department said, “The fire broke out on the third floor of the house. A woman and two children were found dead inside the apartment during the firefighting operation.”
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Police said the cause of the fire was not known as of late Tuesday, and an investigation had been opened. No evidence of a crime has emerged so far.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Anant Mittal said: “No signs of foul play have been observed at this stage, but all angles are being investigated. The exact cause of the fire is being investigated and will be announced after further examination. The preliminary investigation indicates that the woman was undergoing treatment for a mental health condition since 2020.”
Residents said they noticed flames and thick smoke rising from the apartment on the third floor at around 10.15 a.m. and rushed to alert the occupants of the apartment and attempt rescue.
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They first arrived at the family’s apartment on the second floor via the stairs and knocked on the door repeatedly. Mohit Sharma opened it and told them that his wife and two daughters were in the room upstairs.
“Since the access to the third floor was through the balcony of the second floor, we rushed there and opened the wooden door. But we could not open the iron door behind it. Despite our best efforts, it did not open,” said Rahul Nawariya, a civil contractor who lives in the adjacent building.
Nawara said he and four to five other neighbors arranged a wooden ladder and climbed to the balcony from the other side of the building. They tried to force open the third floor door, but it was locked from the inside. He added: “We then tried to open the windows. One of them was closed from the inside. When we opened the other, fire and thick smoke exploded, forcing us to retreat. By the time firefighters controlled the fire, the woman and her two daughters had died.”
An elderly woman living nearby said this was the second fatal fire she had witnessed in the area in two years, recalling the fire that followed a compressor explosion at a restaurant in Lodhi Colony in July 2024 in which her son was killed.
Relatives and friends gathered at the house after learning of the accident. A family relative, who requested anonymity, said: “We do not know what happened or how the fire broke out.”
