Gulzar Houz blaze: HC seeks report on fire preparedness

Hyderabad: Telangana High Court on Thursday sought a status report from the state govt regarding the operational readiness of its fire services. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G M Mohiuddin, questioned whether all fire tenders across Telangana are in proper working order, if personnel are equipped with oxygen masks and firefighting gear, and if a consistent water supply to these vehicles is guaranteed.The court's queries arose while hearing a PIL initiated following a letter from Santosh Gupta, a grieving father who lost his daughter in the catastrophic Gulzar Houz fire. The May 2025 blaze claimed the lives of 17 members of a single family.In his letter to the Chief Justice, Gupta levelled serious allegations of gross negligence and incompetence against state authorities. He claimed that despite immediate alerts to emergency services, there were significant delays in the arrival of fire engines and ambulances. He alleged that the first responders arrived with inadequate water and no oxygen cylinders, and were seemingly untrained in administering life-saving CPR to victims."The fire personnel were unprepared to enter the burning building to rescue those trapped. When additional engines arrived, they were not fully operational. It was I, along with my son and some local residents, who entered the building and rescued as many people as possible," Gupta said in his letter.He further contended that the high death toll was exacerbated by delays in shifting the injured to hospitals, noting that eight rescued family members succumbed after a long wait for transport to a hospital in Malakpet.The bench has directed the state govt to file a formal response to these allegations of systemic failure and has adjourned the matter for four weeks. Gupta urged the court to order a judicial inquiry to fix responsibility on the officials of the fire and health departments.