India, July 16 -- A fire ripped through a four-storey apartment in Sector 66 of Noida on Wednesday morning, killing two people, the latest in a spate of infernos in the National Capital Region (NCR) during an unforgiving summer that have underlined the widespread absence of safety systems in residential buildings.

A spark from an electric scooter being charged in the parking lot may have triggered the fire, fire department officials and police said after a preliminary investigation.

Noida police arrested the building's lease owner, Krishna Kumar, 40, and booked him under Section 106 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for causing death by negligence. They also booked Kumar's accountant Shreejan Das Gupta, and the building's caretaker, ...