Woman, her two daughters killed in fire in south Delhi flat; probe on
A 40-year-old woman and her two daughters, aged 8 and 12, died after a fire broke out at their third-floor flat in BK 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 single-room flat 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 practising in 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 tenders were pressed into service after the Delhi Fire Services (DFS) control room received a call at 10.21am reporting a blaze at a house in B-Block, BK Dutt Colony. The fire was brought under control by 11.10 am, officials said. “The fire was on the third floor of the house. A woman and two children were found dead inside the flat during the firefighting operation,” a senior DFS official said.
Police said the cause of the fire was not known till late Tuesday and an investigation had been initiated. No evidence of foul play has emerged so far.
“No signs of foul play have come to notice at this stage, however all angles are being probed. The exact cause of the fire is under investigation and will be communicated after further examination. Preliminary inquiry indicates that the woman had been undergoing treatment for a mental health condition since 2020,” said deputy commissioner of police (south) Anant Mittal.
Residents said they noticed flames and thick smoke rising from the third-floor flat at around 10.15am and rushed to alert the occupants and attempt a rescue.
They first reached the family’s second-floor flat through the staircase and repeatedly knocked on the door. Mohit Sharma opened it and told them his wife and two daughters were in the room on the floor above.
“Since access to the third floor was through the second-floor balcony, we rushed there and opened the wooden door. However, we could not open the iron door behind it. Despite our best efforts, it would not open,” said Rahul Nawariya, a civil contractor who lives in the adjacent building.
Nawariya said he and four to five other neighbours arranged a wooden ladder and climbed to the terrace from the other side of the building. They tried to force open the third-floor door, but it was locked from inside. “We then tried to open the windows. One was locked from inside. As we opened the other, flames and thick smoke burst out, forcing us to step back. By the time firefighters brought the blaze under control, the woman and her two daughters had died,” he said.
An elderly woman living nearby said it was the second fatal fire she had witnessed in the locality in two years, recalling a blaze following 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 incident. “We don’t know what happened or how the fire started,” a relative of the family said, declining to be identified.
