A fire broke out late Monday night at the Ruby Motors and Ruby Pride Luxury Hotel building near the passport office in Telangana’s Secunderabad, killing eight people and critically injuring one.
Deepthi Chandana, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North Zone), stated that officials believe the fire was caused by an explosion in an electrical scooter or a generator in the Ruby Motors showroom on the ground floor of the building.
The hotel has 28 rooms and is located on the top five floors of the building. Officers reported that up to 25 guests were present when the fire broke out around 10 p.m. According to the police, the owners of Ruby Motors, Rajender Singh Bugga and Sumeet Singh, have been operating the e-bike business illegally from the cellar of the building where the explosion occurred for the past year at Secunderabad.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed his condolences in response to the incident. “I am saddened by the loss of life in Secunderabad, Telangana, as a result of a fire.” Condolences to the families who have lost a loved one. May the injured people heal quickly. Each deceased’s next of kin would receive Rs 2 lakh from the PMNRF. The injured will receive Rs 50,000,” PM Modi tweeted. Telangana Home Minister M M Ali has announced ex-gratia payments of Rs 3 lakh to the deceased’s kin.
According to officials, six hotel guests and four hotel employees first noticed the fire and smoke and fled to the adjacent Yatri Inn Hotel, where they alerted authorities. Eight guests, including a woman, died as a result of suffocation and smoke inhalation, while ten others were injured. According to officials, Jayanth K, 39, of Bangalore, is in critical condition in the ICU of the nearby Apollo Hospital.
It’s a terrible accident. Firefighting teams did their best to rescue people from the lodge, but some died as a result of the heavy smoke.
Others were saved from the lodge. “We are investigating how the incident occurred,” Telangana home minister Mohd Mahmood Ali said, adding that Telangana chief minister Chandrashekar Rao has also announced an ex-gratia of Rs 3 lakh and that a case has been filed.
The owners of Ruby Motors and Ruby Hotel have been charged under IPC sections 304 (II) (knowledge that death may result from an act), 324 (causing harm by dangerous means), and section 9 B of the Explosives Act of 1884.
The deceased have been identified as Alladi Harish, 33, of Vijayawada; Seetharaman Swamy, 48, of Chennai; Veerender Kumar Devakar, 50, of Delhi; Balaji Navaneetha Krishnan, 58, of Chennai; Rajeev Malik and Sandeep Malik of Pitampura, New Delhi; Chandan Jethi of Cuttack, Odisha; and Mithali Mahapatra, 29, of Santhasarapur.
When the police arrived, the showroom and hotel were engulfed in thick smoke, according to DCP Deepti Chandana. “Using ladders, first responders and firefighters were able to save a few people.” Some rescuers went up the stairs and brought down at least six people who were unconscious. They had collapsed near the stairwell due to smoke inhalation. “All of the electric bikes in the showroom had been destroyed,” she explained.
Minister T Srinivas Yadav also visited the site and stated that the injured were receiving the best care at top private hospitals – Apollo and Yashoda – and that the government would cover their expenses until they were discharged.
The deceased’s post-mortem is being performed at Gandhi Hospital. According to the minister, the government will also handle the transportation of the bodies to their final resting places. Union Minister G Kishan Reddy, who visited the site, demanded an extensive investigation into the incident and sought to punish those found responsible.
On March 23, 2011, eleven migrant workers from Bihar’s Saran district were killed in an early-morning fire at a timber and scrap godown in Secunderabad’s Bhoiguda. An electrical fault caused the fire, which spread to the first floor, where 12 migrants were housed in two rooms.
