Delhi Police Gets 1-Day Custody Of Building Owner In Delhi's Mundka Fire

Delhi Police today got one-day custody of three men, including the building owner, as part of the probe into the massive fire that broke out in outer Delhi's Mundka leaving 27 people dead, officials said.

Out of the 16 people injured, at least 10 have recorded their statements. Besides them, statements of the witnesses are being recorded, they said.

A Delhi Court handed one-day police custody of the building owner Manish Lakra and two brothers Vijay and Harish Goel who rented two floors in the building to run their business, for further investigation, a senior police officer said.

"We need to collect blood samples of the brothers Vijay and Harish Goel. Also, we need to know their background, company details and permissions taken by them from the authorities concerned," Sameer Sharma, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer), said.

DCP Sharma said the police are yet to verify Manish Lakra's documents.

The officer said the police are asking the authorities concerned, including the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, to give documents pertaining to the building and the businesses there for investigation.

"More than 100 exhibits have been received by the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL). We have formed multiple teams for DNA examination...Now that we have received the samples, we are proceeding with the entire process of DNA profiling. Since it is a complex process, it takes time," a senior FSL official said.

DNA sampling generally takes about one to two weeks. It also depends on the condition of the samples, the official said.

The building owner was arrested from Ghevra Mod while he was en route to Haridwar in Uttarakhand on May 15, two days after the incident.

He was running a real estate business and also owned a shop on the ground floor of the building, police said, adding that his family members are yet to be traced.

Manish Lakra used to live in a two-room-kitchen house with his mother, wife and two children on the fourth floor of the same building. They managed to escape to the adjacent building when the fire broke out, police had earlier said.

The fire is suspected to have broken out at a firm that manufactured and assembled CCTV cameras and routers, and it has been operating in the building since 2017.

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