The Aggarwals had gathered in Delhi to support 75-year-old Radhe Shyam Agarwal as he underwent treatment for a lung infection at a nearby hospital. By Wednesday afternoon, eight members of the family were dead, victims of the tragic Malviya Nagar hotel fire which left 21 people, including foreigners, dead.
A silent grief hung in the air as the residence of chartered accountant Vivek Agarwal, Radheshyam's son, in Gurugram lay deserted on Wednesday after almost the entire extended family was wiped out in the deadly blaze that ripped through Flourish Stay hotel in in the Hauz Rani locality.
Shocked neighbours gathered outside the empty house in Sector 46, unable to come to terms with the fact that eight members of the family, including Vivek (48), his wife Tarjini (47), mother Prem Lata, and daughters Jivisa and Variya, perished in the fire on Wednesday morning.
"Vivek was a CA working with a private company while his wife ran an NGO. We have been told that the bodies will arrive tomorrow after the post-mortem. We are all shocked," Yogender Singh, a neighbour, said.
"None of us can believe that the entire family got killed in the fire. Vivek was a good-natured man, and the family was on friendly terms with everyone in the neighbourhood," Dhull, another neighbour, said.
Haunting last call: 'Maybe I won't survive'
Puneet Gupta, a relative of Vivek, said he made a call to him in the middle of the fire and said "brother, maybe we won't survive".
"I told him to wet a handkerchief and cover his face with it but even that was of no help. Now he is gone," he said, adding, by the time they reached, all of them were dead.
Ashok and Kamla Goel, Vivek's maternal uncle and aunt from Rajasthan's Kishangarh, and another relative, Jhumri Lal Goel, were among the family members who died, relatives said.
Vivek had booked two rooms in the Flourish Stay B&B in Malviya Nagar, where the fire broke out, as his father Radhe Shyam Agarwal had been undergoing treatment at the Max Hospital nearby for the past many days.
A relative said that Vivek's daughter Jivisa, the youngest among the victims, had returned from Bangalore a day earlier to visit her grandfather at the hospital.
With the death of eight family members, the only survivor in the immediate family now is Vivek's ailing father Radhe Shyam, who reportedly has not been informed of the tragedy that has fallen upon him.
Prem Bansal, Vivek's father-in-law who lives in Mahavir Enclave in Delhi, said that Vivek's mother, wife, two daughters, maternal uncle, aunt and another uncle were present at the time of the incident.
They sustained severe burn injuries and lost their lives, he said.
Vivek's relatives questioned the hotel's safety measures, saying that although the site was located on the main road, access to it was through a narrow, congested lane, and that the place lacked proper fire-safety infrastructure.
Another relative said they rushed to the Max Hospital after receiving a call from a cousin, adding that they had never imagined something like this could happen.
The fire ripped through the Flourish Stay B&B allegedly operating without a fire NOC in a congested bylane, killing at least 21 people, including 12 foreigners whose relatives were being treated in hospitals nearby.
The blaze started around 8.30 am and quickly spread through the five-floor narrow building that had only one entry-exit point, permanently sealed windows and a sensor-operated main door, officials said.
At least 58 people were rescued and rushed to hospitals where 21 were declared dead, they said.
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