New Delhi: Five days after a fire at south Delhi’s Flourish Stays left 22 dead and 36 others injured, Jay Mishra, manager of the B&B, was arrested by the Delhi Police.
The arrest, the third in connection with the fire, was made after Mishra surrendered before the Saket court on Monday. The court granted the Delhi Police two days’ custody to interrogate Mishra, against whose name Flourish Stays was granted a B&B licence by the Delhi government’s tourism department.
Mishra was produced before the Saket court alongside Keshav Negi, the cook at Flourish Stays, and the owner Lovkesh Bajaj.
In connection with Mishra, the Delhi Police submitted that they need to confront him with Lovkesh Bajaj, regarding the “procurement and use of the bed and breakfast registration/certificate and the actual management and operation of the establishment”. Furthermore, the police submitted that they need to ascertain the circumstances under which the registration/licence was obtained in his name and the documents submitted before the concerned authorities, the financial transactions to ascertain the chain of responsibility.
According to Delhi Police sources, Mishra managed the finances for Flourish Stays’ owner Lovkesh Bajaj. “Bajaj got the property registered as a B&B by showing Mishra as the owner of the property. He showed that Mishra lived in the property while applying for a B&B licence,” an officer aware of the matter told ThePrint.
The Delhi Police produced the cook, Negi, before Judicial Magistrate Bhanu Pratap Singh of the Saket court. The police had arrested Negi (65) a resident of Delhi’s Dilshad Garden on Saturday.
The Delhi Police Monday informed the court that Negi had “started the fire”.
“He contributed to the fire because when he was preparing tea, the stove caught fire and instead of trying to contain it, Keshav Negi fled from the scene,” the police told the court.
Moving a bail plea, Negi’s counsel told the court that he had informed the owner, Lovkesh Bajaj, and manager of the hotel, immediately after the fire started. “The rapid spread of the fire is itself attributed in the reasons of arrest to LPG cylinders connected by rubber pipes that melted and leaked yet the choice of such piping, the placement of the cylinders and the absence of extinguishers, alarms, sprinklers, emergency exits and a valid fire NOC lie squarely within the exclusive domain of the hotel’s owners and management,” Negi’s plea stated.
Negi’s counsel also submitted that he is a paid employee and he did his duty as an employee by informing the owner and management. “The applicant had neither the knowledge nor the intention to cause such unprecedented harm, he was simply a cook rendering his daily duties,” the plea stated.
The court rejected Negi’s bail plea and granted the Delhi Police 14 days’ custody.
The Delhi Police was also granted two more days’ remand of Lovkesh Bajaj for “custodial interrogation” and piecing together the sequence of events.
The police had lodged an FIR under several sections of the BNS pertaining to culpable homicide, causing hurt by negligence and damage to property.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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