Fire mishap in Bengaluru Corporation office: Two persons detained
Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Saturday said police have detained two people who had escaped after the fire mishap at the Bengaluru municipal Corporation's office, which left nine people injured.
He said the police have started investigation into the fire mishap at the Quality Control Laboratory of the civic agency on Friday.
"Police have to register a case and investigate. Two persons had fled. They have been detained. They are the (BBMP) staff. They ran away soon after the fire. They could have doused fire soon after the incident as there was safety equipment available there," Shivakumar, who holds Bengaluru Development portfolio, told reporters here.
Others on the top floor were trapped by the time they ran down the stairs.
The DCM said three inquiries were going on simultaneously – one is the departmental inquiry by the BBMP, second is police investigation and third by the Electrical Inspectorate to investigate whether the fire happened due to a short circuit.
According to him, the Quality Control Lab was not the place to store documents but it has been done.
"Whom to blame for it? The accident has already happened. We have to provide the best treatment to the injured. We will shift this lab elsewhere," he said.
The Bengaluru Central Division DCP Srinivas Gowda told reporters that a Group-D employee who was present there is being interrogated.
"We are interrogating one person who was on the ground floor at the time of incident…As I said, a Group-D employee who was there is being interrogated. Presently we have detained two people," he said.
Gowda said prima facie it appears that the fire happened due to a highly inflammable material benzene, which is used for testing the strength of asphalt.
According to him, the FSL teams and scientific officers arrived on the spot and collected proof. The incident happened days after the Congress government ordered a judicial probe into all the works in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) during the BJP rule from 2019 to 2023.
This apart, the government formed four panels headed by IAS officers.
The nine injured have sustained burns on their faces and hands, according to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and DCM Shivakumar.
The Congress in Karnataka drew flak for its tweet on the fire accident, which it deleted later. Minutes after the incident, the Congress in Karnataka tweeted from its official handle saying that the fire incident was not an accident but a conspiracy.
Meanwhile, BJP MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal tweeted that the Congress Twitter handle is just like the Congress party which runs away after making allegations.
"The unbridled inept people write whatever comes to their mind and when we question their authenticity, they delete the tweet and run away," Patil tweeted.
He also said, "Wasn’t there a nobleman who said that action will be taken against those who spread fake news? Where has he disappeared?"
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US VP JD Vance says Lebanon not part of ceasefire, calls it ‘misunderstanding’
Budapest/Washington: US Vice President J D Vance has said that Lebanon was never included in the ceasefire understanding with Iran, describing the confusion as a “legitimate misunderstanding”.
Speaking to reporters before departing from Hungary, Vance said, “I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t. We never made that promise.”
He stressed that the United States had not included Lebanon in the scope of the ceasefire at any stage.
His remarks come amid continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where more than 200 people were reported killed, even as ceasefire talks between Iran and the US move forward.
Vance said Israel had “offered … to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful”.
He warned that if Iran allows the situation in Lebanon to affect the negotiations, it could derail the talks.
“If Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart in a conflict where they were getting hammered over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice,” he said.
