Chetpet Fire: Cops trying to connect the dots

CHENNAI: A day after fire tragedy at a residential apartment in Chetpet that left a woman and her two daughters dead, cops on Wednesday claimed that preliminary investigations indicated that the blaze could have been caused by an explosion in the air-conditioning unit.“We are investigating the case from all angles though at this stage we suspect that an explosion in the AC unit caused the fire,” Joint Commissioner (Central) K Sankar told Express.Describing the scene of crime, a senior fire officer said that after the control room received the call at 8.31 pm on Tuesday, they rushed to the third-floor apartment on Spur Tank Road with two vehicles. The fire broke out in the last room, which was the bedroom, and they found the burnt bodies of a woman and a girl on the bed and that of another girl in the bathroom.The victims were later identified as G Jayanthi (42) and her two daughters Saranya (12) and Sahanya (11). Her husband Gnanachandran (48), a businessman, and their eldest daughter Soumya (14) were rushed to a private hospital, where the teenager is fighting for her life with 70 per cent burn injuries.The JCP said while the family hailed from Sri Lanka, they had been residents of Australia for the last seven or eight years. Gnanachandran came to Chennai for the girls’ education, while pursuing his business interests in Sri Lanka.In his statement to the police, Gnanachandran claimed that on the fateful night, the entire family was in the bedroom around 8 pm. Gnanachandaran said his wife lay on the bed, while he was reading a book and their daughters were playing in the room. Suddenly, a spark in the AC unit led to an explosion and the room was soon filled with smoke and fire. He managed to escape with his eldest daughter.The senior fire officer said the bodies of the mother and daughter on the bed raised questions as to whether they did not make any efforts to escape, while the body of a second girl in the bathroom also baffled them. Sources said the domestic maid had been asked to take off on Monday and Tuesday.Denying a fireman’s claim that a rope had been found around a girl’s neck, JCP Sankar said the case was being investigated from all angles.