Currey Road high-rise blaze: Fire system didn’t work, say residents

Shocked residents of One Avighna Park where a security guard plunged to death after a fire broke out on Friday alleged many illegalities in the luxurious complex including a nonfunctional firefighting system nonhandover of the building to the society unauthorised use of floor space indexRohit Rathod in whose flat the fire broke out said ldquoWe tried to use the internal fire system but there was no water The fire brigade reached after an hour but they were also helpless without waterrdquoMayor Kishori Pednekar at One Avighna Park on FridayldquoThe fire system didnrsquot work initially though it started laterrdquo said Rajendra Choudhari deputy chief fire officer Chief Fire Officer Hemant Parab told midday ldquoThe reason of the fire status of the internal fire system and whether fire audits have been done regularly will be probed by the Mumbai Fire BrigaderdquoJeetu Jain a resident alleged ldquoThe society is formed but still the papers of the building havenrsquot been handed over to the society and the maintenance is taken care of by the builder Most of the flats are occupied and there wasnrsquot any construction work going on the 19th floorrdquoWorried Avighna Park residents on FridayOther residents said that their complaints on many issues have fallen on deaf ears The chairman and secretary of the society were not available for comment Swapnaja Kshirsagar ward officer of FSouth said her office hasnrsquot received any written complaints regarding the societyGuardian Minister of the city Aslam Sheikh Guardian Minister of Suburban Aaditya Thackeray Mayor Kishori Pedankar Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal visited the spot Thackeray said ldquoThis incident only reiterates how important fire safety drills fire safety norms like sprinklers refuge areas are in every buildingrdquoAslam Sheikh said ldquoThe fire fighting system wasnrsquot working properly due to low pressure of water We will probe into the matter A fire audit of the building must be carried out at intervals of six monthsrdquoQuoting the residents Mayor Kishori Pednekar said there is a lot of pending work due to nontransfer to the society and it led to the fire She said she has asked the civic administration to probe into the residentsrsquo complaints ldquoA full administrative inquiry regarding the building as well as the fire will be conducted Strict action will be taken against the concerned if facts found against themrdquo said civic chief Iqbal Singh ChahalSanjay Jamadar of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena blamed the builder politicians and BMC for the death of the security guard Arun Tiwari ldquoResidents rushed for their lives today Unauthorised work is still going on There must be an inquiry about all the irregularities in the buildingrdquo said JamadarWersquove the best firefighting system DeveloperldquoThe unfortunate incident happened due to some internal issue within the flat on the 19th floor but thankfully our fire and safety systems prevented it from becoming bigger A full building audit and fire training are regularly done the recent being October 1rdquo said Nishant Agrawal managing director of Avighna GroupAgrawal said ldquoWe have installed the best fire system available around the world Now if a short circuit occurred in the resident flat it canrsquot be controlled as fire systems are in the lobby The entire fire system was in place Every month our managers have done each n every Equipment checkup whose report is submitted to chief fire officer CFOrdquo