Bengaluru building fire leaves 5 dead; owners arrested

A fire broke out in a building in the Nagarathpete area of Bengaluru on Saturday, killing five people, officials said.

Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, accompanied by Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Seemant Kumar Singh, visited the site on Sunday to assess the situation.

While speaking to ANI, Police Commissioner Singh said, "The Fire Department is preliminarily saying that the fire was caused due to a short circuit. We have arrested the owners of these two buildings... No safety guidelines were followed by them. They constructed extra floors without any permission..."


Additionally, Deputy CM Shivakumar assured that strict action would be taken against those violating building norms.

"It is the fault of the building owner. I am going to issue a notice to everyone. They have to strengthen the building. All buildings here are illegal buildings... If they don't strengthen the buildings, we will have to break all of them. I have instructed the authorities to take strict action here... Five people died here. All were from Rajasthan... The government has announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each... What has happened is very painful..." Shivakumar said.

Visuals from the site showed fire officials carrying out rescue and relief operations.