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Final evidence recorded in Uphaar tragedy case

Staff Reporter

ASJ to fix a date for beginning of final arguments on August 17

NEW DELHI: The trial in the Uphaar cinema hall fire tragedy here that claimed 59 lives on June 13, 1997, has reached the final stage with the trial court on Wednesday concluding recording of statements of defence witnesses.

Three of the 12 accused -- A.K. Ghera and Bir Singh of the erstwhile Delhi Vidyut Board and H.S. Panwar of Delhi Fire Service -- took as many as ten months to produce just three witnesses in the court to record their evidence in their support.

Closing the recording of evidence by the defence witnesses, Additional Sessions Judge Mamta Sehagal said she would on August 17 fix a date for beginning final arguments by prosecution and defence counsel.

Thereafter Ms. Sehagal would visit the cinema hall on August 19 for inspection as per a Delhi High Court suggestion to this effect in 2003. The High Court had said that the trial court could, if it so decided, visit the hall within one month of conclusion of defence evidence.

The High Court had in 2003 also granted a compensation of about Rs.18 crore to the family members of the 59 dead and the 103 injured in the fire tragedy and around Rs.4 crore for setting up a Centralised Accident and Trauma Services (CATS) centre here.

The Court had said that since Ansals, the owners of the hall, would bear 55 per cent of the total compensation amount and the remaining liability of 45 per cent would be shared equally by the erstwhile Delhi Vidyut Board, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Licensing, of the Delhi police.

Of their total share of Rs.12.5 crores of the compensation amount, Ansals have so far paid just Rs.3 crores. The compensation matter is now pending in the Supreme Court.

The tragedy had occurred during the premiere show of the Hindi film "Border" when a fire in a DVB transformer in the theatre's basement had spread to the hall asphyxiating 59 people to death.

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