Police arrested the owner of the east Delhi children's hospital where a fire killed seven newborns, officials said. One of the doctors who was on duty, Dr Akash, has also been arrested. Dr Naveen Kichi had been on the run since the fire outbreak late on Saturday, they said. Meanwhile, the Delhi government has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the fire tragedy.
The order directed that the inquiry report to be submitted "as expeditiously as possible".
Delhi Fire Services officials said a blaze erupted at the Baby Care New Born Hospital in east Delhi's Vivek Vihar area around 11:30 pm on Saturday and spread into two adjacent buildings. Twelve newborns were rescued from the facility but seven of them died. Five babies are undergoing treatment at another hospital, they said.
Hours after the tragic incident at the East Delhi hospital, another fire broke out at a multi-storeyed residential building in Shahdara's Krishna Nagar, leaving three people dead.
Delhi Fire Services Director Atul Garg said that they received a call regarding the fire at a baby care hospital at 11.32 pm, following which nine fire tenders were immediately pressed into service.
By the time firemen reached the spot, the building had been engulfed in flames. Yet the firemen and the police personnel rescued 12 infants from the building and took them to a nearby hospital in east Delhi. According to the fire officials, it took them around 70 minutes to control the inferno.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the fire at children's hospital is heartbreaking and warned that those responsible for negligence will not be spared. In a post on X, Kejriwal said the government stood with those who lost their children in the fire incident, and added the administration was ensuring proper treatment to the injured.
