Pankaj, one of the victims of Delhi’s Govindpuri building fire, nearly survived when locals initially pulled him out alive. However, in a devastating final act of love, the 28-year-old rushed back into the flames to look for his family members and did not return.The massive fire that broke out in a five-storey residential building in southeast Delhi’s Govindpuri area in the early hours of Friday killed three people and critically injured two. According to police, a PCR call regarding the blaze was received at the Govindpuri police station at 2.31 am.The deceased were identified as Pankaj (28), his mother Guddi (50), and his sister Soni (20), all residents of the third floor of the building, police said.Pankaj’s other sister Moni (18) and his maternal grandmother sustained critical injuries and are undergoing treatment.”It was the early morning hours, everything was quiet one minute and then it was filled with screams of people asking to be rescued,” an eyewitness told PTI.Saurabh Sharma, a neighbour of the victims, said that as soon as the fire raged, locals rushed to help in one way or another.”In one such rescue bid, we almost saved Pankaj. As soon as the fire officials brought the fire under control, we ran into the building to search for survivors,” he said.He added that they found Pankaj in one of the rooms on the ground floor. “I was so relieved when I found him. We caught him by the shoulders and rushed him out of the building while he was in a semi-conscious state,” he said.But Pankaj cared about neither his safety nor life, according to Sharma.”As we were bringing him outside, all he wanted to know was about his family. Then he did the unthinkable. In a desperate attempt to find his family members, he immediately ran back into the building amid the blaze,” he told PTI.Locals said that he almost made it to the second floor of the building, but due to the suffocating smoke, his breathing slowed down and he was found completely unconscious on the same floor by first responders. Pankaj lost his life in the heartbreakingly courageous attempt.The scenes during the rescue operation depicted not just agony and fear — as the locals kept hearing screams of the trapped people — but also several selfless attempts by neighbours to save lives.Renu Bhutani, a neighbour, said the blast sounded almost like an explosion. “My son and I immediately rushed to the backside of the building to help residents. The terrace door was locked and, due to the heat, we were unable to open it.”We got onto the terrace of an adjacent four-storey building, from which we suspended a wooden ladder onto the top of the burning five-storey building,” she said.Bhutani said she and her son Manav managed to get onto the terrace and decided to make use of the five to six water tanks there, each storing up to a thousand litres of water.”We quickly picked up stones and started hitting the pipeline system connecting the tanks to use the water to cool down the heated terrace gate. The pipes finally broke, releasing bouts of water onto the gate, making it possible for us to open it,” she said.”After finally being able to open the door, there was intense heat hitting us from within the building. To bear the heat, we poured buckets of water over ourselves, rushed in and rescued people from the other floors,” she said.Locals said nine families lived in the building, but many of them were away on vacation. Combined with the swift response of neighbours and local residents, this helped prevent a higher death toll, they claimed.Police said that preliminary inquiry suggests that the fire may have originated due to an electrical short circuit on the ground floor of the building and that at least six two-wheelers caught fire.A senior MCD official said that the colony in which the building is situated is an unauthorised regularised settlement.”The building is also an unauthorised regularised structure; we are looking into the matter and an investigation is ongoing,” the official said.Another police officer said that multiple teams have been deployed to properly investigate the matter.