Indore (Madhya Pradesh) [India], March 19 : A survivor of the deadly fire incident in Indore has recounted the sequence of events, stating that their electric vehicle was not put on charging on the night of the incident and refuting claims of any electric security system in the house.
Saurabh Pugalia, who lost several family members in the blaze, described the incident as a nightmare, noting that he could never forget it.
"I can never forget the incident that took place with us. It was like a nightmare. Around 3 AM, we saw that a fire broke out in our house. We were trying to douse the fire, and in the process, I lost my wife, father, and six other relatives. There were a total of 12 people in the house, but only 4 of us could save ourselves. We tried a lot to douse the fire but it spread so huge that we were helpless," Pugalia told ANI.
He added that neighbouring residents informed the police about the incident, two police vehicles reached immediately and within an hour, the entire administration, including senior officials, rushed to the spot.
When asked about the cause of the fire, whether it was an EV charging point, he said, "We did not put our EV car on charge that night. There was a spark on the electric pole near our house. It is possible that those sparkles led to my bike and car catching fire from there. After that, it spread to the hall on the ground. We also got to know that there were blasts in a gas cylinder and an AC compressor."
Pugalia further refuted the claims of a digital lock or electric door system in their house and stressed that there was an iron door which heated because of fire and could not be opened.
"It is not like that, there is only a CCTV camera installed in our house as part of the security concern. There was an iron door, which was locked and due to the fire, it got heated. After that, when my father opened the wooden door, the heavy flames fell on them. We don't have any electric locks in our house," Pugalia said.
Additionally, he expressed gratitude to Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, saying the CM extended his full support and assured that he would get the incident investigated by teams from Bhopal.
"The CM came here, sat with us and showed his support to us. He provided us with moral support. Shortly, I came to know that Prime Minister Narendra Modi also tweeted about the incident," Pugalia said.
A massive fire broke out in the early hours of Wednesday in a three-storey house in the Brijeshwari Annexe residential locality in Indore district, claiming the lives of eight people.