Overview
- An early-morning fire on Jan 10 in a ground-plus-one chawl on Rajaram Lane, Bhagat Singh Nagar, Goregaon West, left Sanjog Pawaskar, 48, and his children Harshada, 19, and Kushal, 12, dead after they were rescued and declared dead at HBT Trauma Care Hospital.
- Fire officers said flames were confined to electrical wiring and household articles on the ground floor, with smoke engulfing the upper level where the victims were sleeping; the autopsy found the father died from burns and the children from smoke inhalation.
- Neighbors acted first with buckets of water before firefighters arrived, cut power during operations, and later disabled electricity to the slum pocket as a safety measure.
- The MFB has launched a full investigation and noted the illegal, densely packed structure lacked firefighting systems, with officials also seeking a ward-level drive to confiscate hoarded gas cylinders before summer.
- A separate Level-1 fire the previous evening at Lodha Grandeur in Parel was confined to bamboo scaffolding, extinguished within about an hour, and caused no injuries.