He said that the fires are mostly termed to the accidents mainly due to the negligence of slum dwellers.However the devastating fire which claimed several lives and destroyed thousands of jhuggies in a slum cluster close to Vijay Ghat in New Delhi on 14 March seems to be far from yet another case of accident.

He said in order to understand the happening a fact finding team was organised by the Institute .The central aim of the investigation was to make visible the victims version of the happenings. The investigation was conducted in two phases.In the first phase the investigators revisited the affected slum after a week of the fire to cross check the version of the victims and to review the relief work of the area.

 He said that the observation of individual members of the team as well as their open ended interviews with the victims,the police officers of the area, the local political leaders and party workers ,relief workers and doctors brings to surface dimensions which have been either overlooked of under played by the official sources.

The team in it major findings said that there seems to be a vast gap between the victims versions in terms of what caused the fire from the reported by the police and the local leaders.The fire does not seem to be an accident but was man made.The incident appears to be an outcome of an organised plan marked by acts of deliberate commission and omission. There appears to be a close connection between the meeting to be held by the opposition parties against police atrocities on the Bengali speaking Muslim residents of the slum and the fire. The investigation also brings into sharp focus the existing nexus between the Delhi police, the Hindu communal forces and the anti-social elements each feeding upon each other within the slum.

They said that the survey conducted and compensation given by the government authorities reflect lack of systematic method and neglect of the most affected victims of fire.According to the people the government survey is complete and people who lost their jhuggies and suffered severe burns have not received any compensation as yet. Similarly some of the families of the dead have yet to received compensation,they said.