Delhi Shahdara fire tragedy: With buckets, mattresses and angle grinders, bravehearts pull off daring rescue missions

NEW DELHI: When a residential building in Vivek Vihar turned into a furnace, the difference between life and death rested on split-second acts of bravery.

Trapped between intimidating walls of flames and jammed exits, the residents’ narrow path to survival was shaped by a group of bravehearts who refused to succumb to fire or panic. Even as firefighters navigated blind stairwells to pull residents out, there were selfless locals whose quick thinking saved many lives.

Gurdeep Singh Gill, who lives on the second floor of an adjacent building, was about to go to bed when the sound of screaming drew him to his balcony. The sight was harrowing: Flames leapt out of the first floor of the neighbouring building and were fast approaching a balcony where two sisters, Rakshita (22) and Priyal (15), were trapped. With fire services yet to reach the spot, Gill realised he had only seconds to save the girls. “I knew they couldn’t wait,” he told TOI.

Gill sprinted to his room, dragged mattresses off his beds, and tossed them into a narrow space used for parking on the ground floor. “Jump!” he shouted to the sisters over the roar of the fire. “I told them they had to immediately jump and that we were right there to catch them. And they did,” Gill said, recalling the leap of faith that saved the lives of the sisters.

Even as he was coordinating the rescue, another neighbour, 40-year-old Vishal, was fighting a desperate battle from his own balcony on the first floor of another building. The heat was so intense that it had already melted his outdoor AC unit and scorched the walls of his balcony.

“The flames were leaping out of their kitchen and balcony right towards my home,” Vishal said. Despite the blistering heat, he began a frantic relay — filling up buckets in his bathroom and rushing back to the balcony. “I made multiple trips, throwing water through the grills into the side of their floor. I just wanted to stop the fire from spreading further or reaching other units.”

Manik Malhotra (32), an IT professional, said he reached the spot around 4.30 am and saw the blaze being fanned by strong winds. After coming to know that the firefighters did not have angle grinders to cut the sturdy steel grills — the regular cutters were of no use — he rushed to the site of his under-construction house, fished out a grinder and handed it over to them. “A neighbour gave them another one,” Malhotra said, adding that even the grinders struggled to the prise open the grills.

Both the firefighters and locals highlighted the courage of a young girl inside the building, which was on fire. “I told her to hold our water pipe and spray it on the blaze while we cut through the grills. Despite the risk, she did her job, preventing the fire from spreading and giving us crucial time to complete the rescue,” a firefighter said.

Raja Hashmi from Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal said a team of 15 members, along with 12 ambulances, was among the first responders to reach the spot. The ambulances were used to promptly shift the injured to nearby hospitals.

“The house had a central locking system, complicating rescue efforts. The firefighters eventually had to cut through an iron gate on the third floor. From that point, we assisted them in evacuating and transporting the injured,” Hashmi said.

Karan Arora, another local, said people broke open a gate leading to a lane at the back of the buildings to allow firefighters access. “After that, our job was to assist them in entering the neighbouring houses so they could reach the stricken building and douse the blaze,” he said.