New Delhi, India: November 20, 2007 - A city court in Delhi has convicted here today two Ansal Brothers and 10 others in the Uphaar fire tragedy in 1997 within and outside the Cinema, some people were declared dead in  hospital. It was an unlucky date of 13th, as is universally acknowledged. The manager of the cinema Mr. KL Malhotra died during the pendancy of the case. 

The 12 accused have been found guilty on various charges including negligence in causing death to 59 people.The court will pronounce the sentence tomorrow.

28 families were affected, who had lost their dears and nears, they came to enjoy the show and never returned.They formed their own association and demanded justice from the court and afterall won the long fought battle.

Ten years ago, a small fire had broken out in an electrical transformer, which was kept inside the basement of the cinema and that exploded in flames during the premiere of a Bollywood movie “J. P. Dutta's Border ”

The hall was packed to capacity and most of the victims were trapped in the balcony and suffocated to death when poisonous smoke overwhelmed the hall in Green Park Extension Market, where this cinema is located. 

Had the people from the Green Park Extension Market not come to the rescue of the people, the causalities could have been much more than one could imagine. The members of the association, in an emergency rescue operation, spread tent sheets over the ground near the window and asked the people to jump over from the window and thus saved over 100 persons.

The seven exits downstairs saved hundreds. But 300 people upstairs were trapped. The only exit was bolted from outside.

It took more than 20 minutes to break down the door not fast enough to save 59 people who died on the spot, all of them from asyphixia. (IR Summary).

Other factor of news by NDTV :

The cause of the disaster was a transformer outside the cinema that had caught fire. But what sealed the fate of the audience in the balcony was the fact that every rule in the book had apparently been broken by the builders, the Ansals.

The emergency lights weren't working. The smoke made it impossible to find the exit.

Two exits and two aisles had been blocked permanently to add an extra 40 seats. That left just one exit at the extreme left with only one possible route of getting to it so people on the right stood little chance of escaping it.

But it wasn't just the Ansals who seem to have violated all safety laws.

In December, NDTV's exclusive report showed that the Ansals had been fighting since the 70s...to alter the theatre's legal plans.

The builders even went to the High Court to argue this. They were opposed by this man Amod Kanth who was then the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of Licensing.

Bizarrely two months later, Amod Kanth reversed his stand and sanctioned plans to block the aisles and exits, a decision that proved to be inexcusable 17 years later.

All the 59 who died were sitting in the balcony and because there was no exit they could not escape that is why they died and Amod Kanth is responsible for it,'' said Neelam Krishnamurti, President, Association of Victims of Uphaar.