New Delhi: On Wednesday night Dhanendra Kumar, his wife and son sat together in the dining hall of their Hauz Khas home, finalising the details of the retired IAS officer’s upcoming 80th birthday. Minutes later, his son Gaurav, rushed in and out of his ground-floor bedroom, alerting them that an air conditioner had burst into flames.
While two staffers present in the house rescued his physically immobile mother, his father was found unconscious near the bathroom. Later that day, Kumar (79) was declared dead by the AIIMS trauma center where he was taken along with his son.
A member of Kumar’s household staff said it took fire tenders an hour to arrive at the location after the blaze broke out—a claim the Delhi Fire Service denied.
Kumar was a 1968-batch IAS officer of the Haryana cadre who was the first head of the Competition Commission of India (CCI). He also represented India at the World Bank as an Executive Director and held several key positions during his career including Chairman and Managing Director of the Haryana State Industrial Development Corporation (HSIDC) and Principal Secretary to the Haryana chief minister.
“Gaurav bhaiya had just returned to his room after having dinner when he saw that his room was ablaze. There were clothes and wooden furniture, and the fire was spreading at a lightning speed,” said Abhishekh Ranjan, Kumar’s staffer.
Grieving his employer’s death, Ranjan, who had worked for Kumar for 14 years, told The Print that the health-conscious Kumar had gone to Delhi Gymkhana Wednesday morning and had been looking forward to his birthday celebration on 6 June. “His son had already come from London for the celebrations and he was waiting for his daughter to join them.”
About the night of the fire, Ranjan said Gaurav panicked called his wife around 11 pm who wasted no time in calling Ranjan for help. “I received a call at 11:08 pm and immediately started calling the Delhi Fire Service. I reached sir’s house by 11:18 pm from Chattarpur but the fire tenders did not reach until 12 am,” Ranjan told The Print.
He added that the neighbours had all stepped out to help the family. “Someone stepped out with buckets full of water, someone with pipes, as soon as I arrived, I started throwing water from the tank, but the fumes were very strong,” he said.
While the two staffers present that night, along with Kumar’s son, rescued Manju Kumar (Dhanender Kumar’s wife), by the time they entered to rescue the retired IAS officer, he was found unconscious on the floor of his bedroom.
“Manju ji cannot walk steadily by herself, so it took some time for the staff members and her son to rescue her. Gaurav ji was also heavily impacted by the smoke he inhaled, so by the time the staffers went looking for Dhanender ji, he was found lying unconscious in front of the bathroom inside his room,” said Ranjan.
Kumar and his son were taken to the AIIMS trauma centre minutes after the fire broke out.
“While Gaurav Kumar was declared out of danger Thursday, the doctors said that Dhanender Kumar had succumbed,” DCP (south) Anant Mittal said.
Priya Basu, a neighbour, told The Print that she had stepped out of her house after receiving a fire alert message on the RWA group. “I quickly stepped out to move the car parked near Kumar’s house so that the ambulance or fire tenders would not face any challenge but within minutes the fire had spread and despite multiple calls to the DFS, they only arrived 45 minutes later. Uncle could have been saved if the DFS had come sooner.”
A DFS official told The Print that they were alerted about a “house fire” at 11:24 pm. “The fire was under control by 12:20 am. Two injured persons were removed to AIIMS Trauma Center by PCR before the arrival of DFS units,” the official said.
Adding, “When the unit reached the spot, there was fire in one room to ground floor of a two storey building. The fire had spread to the domestic articles and wooden windows.”
Responding on the allegations of delay in the dispatching of fire tenders, the senior DFS official said that the two vehicles—one from Geetanjali Enclave fire station and another from Bhikaji Cama fire station—were dispatched by 11:25 pm right after the DFS received a call at 11:24 pm. “The fire station nearest to the spot was Geetanjali Enclave fire station from where the tender reached approximately 10 minutes later, since Bhikaji Cama is slightly far, it took an approximately 25 minutes for the vehicle to reach, however we have on our record that there was no call made around 11 pm,” the official maintained.
The police at present are investigating the cause of fire and have cordoned off the rooms where the fire had started and spread. Kumar’s body has been kept in the mortuary and is yet to be handed over to his family.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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