B&B fire: Cook arrested, trigger for tragedy still unclear

Delhi Police on Saturday arrested a cook working at the Hauz Rani bed-and-breakfast facility in connection with the fire that killed 21 people earlier this week, with a court later sending him to two days in custody — even as the precise cause of the blaze remained contested, the accused's own account to investigators placing the origin in the kitchen while his counsel told court the fire was the result of an electrical short circuit elsewhere in the building.

- Hemani Bhandari and Arnabjit Sur

Keshav Negi, 65, was arrested on Saturday morning after being detained on Friday. Deputy commissioner of police (south) Anant Mittal confirmed the arrest. Negi, who lives in Shahdara’s Dilshad Garden, had been working at Flourish Stay B&B in Malviya Nagar’s Hauz Rani for over a year, police said.

During interrogation, Negi told police he was cooking in the kitchen on the ground floor at around 8:30am on Wednesday when he saw a spark in a fryer, which subsequently caught fire, Mittal said. He fled the B&B without helping anyone, the official said. His counsel, however, told the Saket court that the fire had started due to an electrical short circuit and not from the kitchen “as being portrayed by police.”