The Supreme Court on Thursday awarded one year imprisonment for real estate builder Gopal Ansal who with his elder brother, Sushil, owned a south Delhi cinema hall where a fire killed 59 people 20 years ago.
The tragedy dates back to June 13, 1997 when a fire broke out at Uphaar Cinema in Delhi’s Green Park area during the screening of Bollywood blockbuster ‘Border’. Fifty nine people died and over 100 were injured due to suffocation in the ensuing stampede as the escape routes were blocked by illegally-fixed extra chairs.
In November 2007, a trial court had sentenced the Uphaar owners – the Ansal brothers — to two-year rigorous imprisonment. But in December 2008, the Delhi high court reduced their sentence to one-year jail term. While Sushil Ansal spent 5 months and 20 days in jail, Gopal remained in jail for four months and 20 days.
On August 19, 2015, the SC upheld the brothers’ conviction in the case. However, considering their age and the period already spent by them in prison, it decided not to send them back to jail. It asked the Ansal brothers to pay a fine of Rs 30 crore each in lieu of a jail term.
