New Delhi: Vivek Aggarwal, a director at a private company, had moved in at Hauz Rani to get his critically-ill father admitted to Max Hospital’s ICU. Instead, Vivek and seven other family members perished in Wednesday’s devastating inferno.
Adding to the tragedy was the nature of their end—the bodies were charred beyond recognition. It was only from the gold jewellery—rings, bangles and chains—that their identities could be established.
Vivek, his wife Tarjani, their daughters Jivisha and Varya, Vivek’s mother Premlata and three others from the maternal family—all dead—were staying at the guest house, Flourish Stays, according to his father-in-law Prem Bansal.
Later, the Delhi Police issued a press statement confirming the deaths.
The family from Gurugram had been told that the medical condition of Vivek’s father Radhe Shyam Aggarwal was critical. Vivek had decided to shift his family to a nearby hotel, barely a few metres away from the hospital, to avoid the usual Delhi-Gurugram traffic. Little did the family know what lay in store for them.
Outside the emergency ward of the same South Delhi hospital, Vivek’s family members—both close and distant—were wailing and lamenting. “Hum Vivek ko bacha nahi paaye (We couldn’t save Vivek)” was the refrain.
“Our entire family arrived from different cities to check on Radhe Shyam. He has been sick due to old age, he has lung-related complications,” Bansal told ThePrint.
His son-in-law, Bansal said, rented two rooms at the guesthouse on Tuesday. They planned to visit Radhe Shyam in the morning, he added.
“Vivek’s uncle at Kotla (in Delhi) got a phone call from him around 8 am that the family was in the basement in the restaurant, having breakfast. He told us that his father is admitted at the hospital, so they will go see him… Minutes later, we received a phone call. Vivek was screaming from the other end: ‘There is a fire, and we are stuck’,” he recalled.
That was the last that the uncle and other family members heard from Vivek. Multiple calls to Vivek and the others went unanswered. Panic spread, and the remaining relatives rushed to the homestay.
The sight at Malviya Nagar, Bansal said, made them weak. “We reached the crowded lane, and saw the bodies being taken out by the police and fire personnel. We couldn’t stop crying; we could not process what happened…,” he said.
At Max Hospital, doctors broke the dreaded news—all eight victims were brought dead.
Grief-stricken family members narrated that Vivek had called several family members to the hotel for visiting his father. His maternal uncle and aunty had arrived from Ajmer, while his other uncle reached from Kishangarh.
Vivek had also called his eldest daughter, an engineering student from Bengaluru. “He had told her to rush to Delhi, so that she could also meet her grandfather…,” Bansal said.
None of them survived the blaze that snuffed out at least 21 lives.
Angered by their loss, the family members said that the guesthouse was present in a locality with narrow lanes. Most of the establishments don’t even follow safety standards, they said.
“Our family members were left in the basement, and they could not come out. We got to know many of the people even jumped to escape the fire. It is the concerning conditions and the fact that no fire safety norms were followed that led to their death. We demand answers,” Bansal said.
Vivek told his father to be hopeful that he would soon be discharged from the hospital, he lamented.
Bansal and others are now struggling not just with the loss of their loved ones, but also left worried about the living family member—Radhe Shyam.
(Edited by Tony Rai)