Uphaar cinema fire

Barely a month old, the Maruti 800 car parked outside the Sehgal residence in Delhi during the summer of 1997 was a thing of awe and envy. Mohan Lal Sehgal, who was then employed at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), had bought the car on the insistence of his 21-year-old son Vikas. “He loved to drive, my Vicky. It was his hobby. Imagine my plight that less than three weeks after I bought it for my son, I had to bring back his body in that same car… Uss din saare shauk khatam ho gaye,” said Sehgal. From June 1997 to June 2022, the city changed. It expanded to make space for high-rises and condos. Multiplexes and malls mushroomed. A new political party emerged as the winner in Delhi. Fashion changed, hairstyles too. The summer got hotter; the winter colder. The Delhi metro line grew longer, the mobile phones got slicker and taller, and cabs began to be hailed online. Everything changed. For Sehgal, however, life came to a standstill on 13 June 1997 – just as it did for Neelam and Shekhar Krishnamoorthy, who lost their 17-year-old daughter Unnati and 13-year-old son Ujjwal; and for Naveen Sawhney who lost his 21-year-old daughter Tarika that day at the • His daughter Tarika had gone to watch Border with her friend Ruby Kapoor, who too died in the fire. When Tarika was found, the watch on her wrist was intact, and is now worn by her niece – a young girl Tarika never met. For Sehgal, the headlines that fire incidents make in 2022 are identical to the ones he read in 199...

On June 13, 1997, during a screening of J P Dutta’s Border, a massive fire broke out at Uphaar Cinema in Delhi’s Green Park. A total of 59 people died of asphyxiation after being trapped in the hall, while 103 were seriously injured in an ensuing stampede to escape. Subsequently, victims and the families of the deceased formed The Association of Victims of Uphaar Fire Tragedy (AVUT) and filed for damages. What followed was a protracted legal battle which tried to hold the owners of the theatre accountable. Uphaar Cinema fire: Here’s what happened Early morning on that ill-fated day, the larger of the two transformers installed on the ground floor of the Uphaar Cinema building caught fire. While this fire was put out quickly, it damaged the transformer. To get it up and running before the movie hall began operations, quick repairs were carried out. The shoddiness of these repairs was reportedly behind the much larger fire later in the day. The interiors of the Uphaar Cinema Hall remain the same since the incident on June 13, 1997. (Express Photo: Tashi Tobgyal) At around 5 pm, the transformer caught fire again, after one of the repaired cables came loose and caused intense sparking. Since the transformer did not have an oil soak pit, as required under regulations, the burning oil spread outside. Thus, cars parked even at a distance of no more than a metre from the door of the transformer were also engulfed in the flames. By now, the blaze had gone out of control. Thick smok...

Premium Uphaar Cinema fire: Delhi HC reserves orders in Sushil Ansal’s plea seeking restraint on release of ‘Trial by Fire’ Sushil Ansal, along with his brother Gopal Ansal owned Uphaar Cinema, has also sought a restrain of the further publication of the book, Trial by Fire — The tragic tale of the Uphaar Tragedy The Delhi High Court Wednesday reserved orders in a plea moved by real estate tycoon Ansal, who along with his brother Gopal Ansal owned Uphaar Cinema, has also sought a restrain of the further publication of the book, Trial by Fire — The tragic tale of the Uphaar Tragedy, written by Neelam and Shekhar Krishnamoorthy published by Penguin Random House India Private Ltd on which the Netflix series is stated to be based. Krishnamoorthys are the parents of two children who died in the fire which took place in June 1997. During the course of the hearing, which went on for around two hours, senior advocate Siddharth Aggarwal appearing for Ansal, 83, submitted before a single judge bench of Justice Yashwant Varma the case pertains to an “unfortunate incident” which resulted in the death of 59 people and injuries to 100 more for which his client has been tried. “I was found guilty of section 304A (causing death by negligence), sentenced, and directed to pay Rs. 30 crore as a fine which I did. There was a parallel proceeding on allegations of tampering with court records. I suffered the trial and was convicted,” said Ansal. Aggarwal also informed the court both victims of ...

Exactly 22 years ago, on June 13, 1997, 59 patrons bought tickets to watch a patriotic movie, went to the cinema hall and returned as dead bodies with identification numbers pasted on their foreheads. The incident happened in Uphaar Cinema, located in Green Park – one of the poshest localities in the national capital. Welcome to the world of India’s fire safety standards in public places. If Unnati was 17 and Ujjwal was 13 on that fateful day. Her body lay just two stretchers away from his when their parents went to look for them in the OPD block of Safdarjung Hospital. Entertainment had turned to death under the watch of several law enforcement and regulatory agencies in one of the worst fire tragedies in India’s history. In all, 28 families lost loved ones on that fateful day. Also read: On the day, during the matinee screening of a movie, a spark in an electricity transformer on the ground floor of the Uphaar complex led to a fire. It spread to the parking lot, where cars went up in flames, leading to thick toxic smoke entering the auditorium via the air-conditioning ducts. While the 750 people sitting on the first floor of the cinema managed to escape, those in the balcony were less lucky. Illegal extensions, obstructions, deviations, deficiencies, additional seats and blocked exits left them trapped as smoke filled the hall. Ujjwal and Unnati sat in the first row of the balcony, next to a gangway and exit that were It would be criminal to call it a tragedy. It was a m...

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Wednesday sought the response of real estate tycoons Sushil and Gopal Ansal to a plea by the Delhi Police seeking enhancement of punishment for allegedly tampering with evidence in the 1997 Uphaar cinema fire which claimed 59 lives. The police have challenged the trial court's July 19, 2022 order releasing the Ansal brothers. Their punishment of around eight months was set off against the period they had already spent in jail. Justice A J Bhambhani issued notice to the Ansals, former court staff Dinesh Chand Sharma and the Ansal's former employee P P Batra and asked them to file replies to the police's petition. It also asked the Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) to file the reply and fixed the matter for further hearing on April 13, when other related petitions have been listed. The judge also condoned the delay by the Delhi Police in filing the revision petition saying, "I will condone the delay in a matter like this". "State has taken a little time to come but now we have also come. There is a short delay in filing the revision petition. It is a bureaucratic delay," senior advocate Dayan Krishnan, representing the state, said. While AVUT has already filed a petition seeking enhancement of punishment for the convicts, the Ansals, Sharma and Batra have moved separate pleas for setting aside their conviction in the case. The high court had earlier issued notices on all the petitions. In its plea before the high court, the polic...

A Delhi court on Monday sentenced real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal to seven years’ imprisonment for tampering with evidence in the 1997 Uphaar cinema fire case. We look at the painful memories of families of the victims who have fought a legal battle to find justice and closure for the last 24 years. He doesn't look like a victim. He's not pale, emaciated or physically scarred. True, his eyes are dull and below them hang pouchy blue-black crescents. But you would expect Jagdeep Mann, the owner of a home with a drawing room filled with crystal, the employer of a servant silently transferring sandwiches and soup into china plates and the driver of a Daewoo Matiz, to look tired. Success does that to some men. Mann himself looks like he enjoys the good life. Strangers would be envious. What do they know? On June 13, 1997, Mann's wife and children went to Uphaar Grand, a movie theatre in Delhi's Green Park area that promised the 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. screening of the film Border would be a memorable experience. It was. A transformer on the ground floor of the complex leaked oil; the oil burnt, sending noxious fumes, first tentatively, then increasingly thickening and speeding into the theatre. The movie continued. Were they watching a song sequence? Sandese aate hain perhaps, a popular tune people still hum when melancholic. Were they watching heartthrob Akshaye Khanna die on the battlefield? How long after did they realise that it was their turn to die? It has been four ye...

In a big relief for the Ansal brothers, a Delhi court on Tuesday released Gopal and Sushil Ansal after sentencing them to a period already undergone in connection with the Uphaar cinema fire evidence tampering case. Delhi's Patiala House court on Tuesday reduced the sentence of the Ansal brothers and other convicts to the period undergone in the case due to their 'advanced age'. The convicts had challenged the conviction and sentence of 7 years. Speaking to Republic TV, Neelam Krishnamurthy, who lost both her children in the fire condemned the relief granted to the real estate tycoons. "How serious the offence is? They are encouraging people to tamper with evidence. The law of the land is not for the rich and powerful. Judiciary is not meant for ordinary citizens, but for giving relief to the rich and mighty. An ordinary citizen should not approach the judiciary to seek justice. After upholding the conviction, they have done this," she said. READ | The case is related to tampering with the evidence in the main fire tragedy which had claimed 59 lives, in which the Ansals were convicted and sentenced to a 2-year jail term by the Supreme Court. Appearing for the Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) during the proceedings, Senior advocate Vikas Pahwa had told the court that a total of 20,000 pages and 9 handpicked ‘critical’ documents relating to Sushil Ansal, Gopal Ansal, and HS Panwar were either mutilated, destroyed, obliterated or completely removed from the rec...

On June 13, 1997, a fire broke out from a faulty transformer at the Uphaar Cinema hall in New Delhi's affluent Green Park area. It was screening the patriotic Bollywood film Border on its opening day. It was a full house, and exit doors were locked to prevent people from sneaking in without tickets. While about 750 people on the first floor managed to escape the fire, those seated in the balcony seats were trapped and a private box for the Ansal family, which owned the cinema, had been added, further blocking access to the exits. Fifty-nine people died due to asphyxiation and suffocation, and more than 100 were injured in the stampede that ensued. Neelam and Shekhar Krishnamoorthy lost their two teenage children, Ujjwal, 13, and Unnati, 17, in the fire. Trial by Fire, a seven-part Netflix series, is based on the memoir written by the Krishnamoorthys and delves into the couple’s 26-year fight for justice against the Ansal brothers, who owned the cinema hall. Thanks to this landmark case, awareness regarding fire safety in India has slowly changed for the better, ensuring the government and municipal corporations have since taken fire emergencies more seriously and put measures in place, such as evacuation plans. Although, even today, no concrete laws have been framed. Uphaar Cinema was owned by two brothers, Gopal and Sushil Ansal, who were famous real estate barons in Delhi. The fire was caused by two faulty transformers that had been shoddily repaired. Public alarm and ...

The Krishnamoorthys' home is quiet with the photo frames of their two children, who perished in the fire, hanging on the wall. Unnati and Ujjwal seem to be looking for justice. It is their parents' hard work and courage that has kept them going to seek what they want from India's judicial system. They are determined to fight on until their last breath. Neither they nor their kids knew that a movie on a Friday evening will turn Neelam and Shekhar's lives upside down. In a span of a few hours, a family of a cheerful four was reduced to two members. Twenty six years ago a fire broke out in Green Park's Uphaar ninema at New Delhi while the film "Border" was being screened. In June 1983, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Licensing, had suspended the cinema's license for four days due to structural and fire safety deviations. The Green Park Theatre & Associated (P) Ltd. (which ran Uphaar cinema), obtained a stay order from the Delhi High Court. On account of the stay order, only temporary permits were issued to the cinema and the theatre owners -- Sushil and Gopal Ansal -- kept on obtaining temporary permits from the Licensing Authority for periods of two months each, for 14 years till June 13, 1997, the day the fire broke in Uphaar. At 4.55 p.m., a swirling mass of thick smoke engulfed the balcony section of the hall. In the absence of fire exits and ushers to help the patrons, the people seated on the balcony found themselves trapped. By 7 p.m., 59 people from 28 families had...