India, June 26 -- NEW DELHI

At 7.40pm on Tuesday, 62-year-old Dilip Singh called his son Dharam from work and told him that he won't survive, according to his son. "There's a big fire. It's all around. I don't think I'll survive," Dharam quoted his father as saying, calling it "his last words", made in a 43-second call. Two minutes later, when Dharam called his father, there was no response.

Dharam rushed between the fire site, the mortuary of Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital and the police station for clarity; then he saw a charred body and identified his father.

"After that last call from my father, I called a man who used to work with him to rush to the site because it would have taken me time to reach from Noida. His colleague reach...