GURUGRAM: A 32-year-old interior designer, saved many lives in a highrise tower at Tulip Orange on Sunday night, knocking on doors of flats to alert other residents to a fire that had started in the stairwell a little after 2am. Thanks to her, almost everyone escaped to safety, to the building’s upper floors. But Swati couldn’t. Firefighters found her dead two hours later, next to the gate leading to the 10th floor terrace, five floors above her flat. The gate was locked, trapping Swati in a stairwell filled with thick smoke.
Unable to call out for help or climb down, Swati Garg choked and collapsed next to a locked gate leading to a terrace. Firefighters found handprints on the wall next to the gate, indicating Swati’s struggle to find a way out, before she lost consciousness and died of asphyxiation.
It took almost 45 minutes for firefighters to reach the tower — a fear residents of new sectors had repeatedly expressed. Since the Haryana government is yet to build fire stations in Gurugram’s new sectors, the nearest one at Sector 29, near Huda City Centre metro station, is 12km away. The fire brigade received a call at 2.28am and reached Tulip Orange only at 3.10am. For a full hour, residents had to fend for themselves, along with Tulip’s facility management.
Police commissioner KK Rao said a case under section 304 (culpable homicide) had been filed at Badshahpur police station against the developer Tulip Infrastructure and its maintenance agency. There are 36 flats in the tower where the fire started — four on each floor. The society has 11 towers (around 500 flats). Police said the fire was caused due to a short circuit in an electricity meter on the first floor. The flames rose to the tenth floor within minutes, but remained contained to the power shaft of the stairwell. The stairwell is the building’s only fire exit. Swati’s mother—who had recently come to live with the Gargs to help her settle into a new job — is among two people who were rushed to hospital and are being treated for burn injuries. The Garg family was among the first to react to the blaze, which started around 2.15am.
They feared the electrical panel next to their flat (501) would catch fire and decided to look for a safer place — Swati woke up others on the fifth floor, her husband Girish took their four-year-old daughter, Swati’s mother and a friend who was visiting out of the flat. But in the swirling smoke and darkness, as power supply snapped, Girish and Swati lost track of each other.
“When we first got out of the flat, there was smoke all around,” Girish, a Honeywell employee, said. “We first tried to go downstairs but could not go beyond the third floor. We returned to our flat because we were suffocating,” he added. Then, wrapping themselves in wet towels, they went towards the upper floors.
“By the time we reached the eighth floor, I was struggling to breathe. The door of one of the flats there was open and I got in with my daughter,” Garg said, adding there was so much smoke that he lost track of Swati and his mother-in-law. “Tulip Infrastructure, Apple (facility management company) and its managers, and officials of DTCP who gave approval are responsible for the fire and death of my wife and action should be taken against all of them,” Garg said in his complaint. Swati’s body was taken to Shivpuri in Madhya Pradesh, where she was from.
Neighbour and friend Monica Singh said it was because of Swati that, within minutes, everybody on their floor had started climbing towards the terrace to escape the fire.
Police said Swati appeared to have headed upstairs to open the door of the terrace to allow the smoke to go out. But no one had any idea where Swati was till the firefighters found her. "I cannot imagine what she suffered," Girish said.
Swati worked with an interior designing firm in DLF 2.
Praveen Jain, MD of Tulip Infratech, said it was "very unfortunate that one of our residents lost her life" but denied allegations of residents that firefighting equipment like extinguishers were not working. "All Tulip buildings have necessary approvals. Our workforce along with residents and the fire brigade controlled the fire," he said.