New Delhi: After over two dozen EV fire cases in the country, eight people have now died and several injured after a massive fire broke out in a multi-storeyed building late on Monday night in Secunderabad, Telangana.

According to a NDTV report quoting the sources, the fire broke out in Gemopai Electric Scooters showroom in the building. The owner of the showroom had been using the basement to store the EVs where a short circuit occurred due to overcharging of the EVs. The fire then spread on the upper floors of the building which had several hotel rooms.

There are reportedly 23 rooms in all the four floors in the hotel. The smoke traversed through the staircase from the bottom up to the top floor. Some people who were sleeping in the first and second floors came to the corridor through the thick smoke and died, said the report quoting CV Anand, Police Commissioner, Hyderabad.

All the eight people reportedly seemed to have died because of asphyxiation caused by the smoke.

Introduced in 2018, the Greater-Noida based Gemopai Electric Scooters is a joint venture between Goreen E-Mobility and Opai Electric.

“It’s a very unfortunate incident, & we’re deeply saddened by the loss of lives. Our teams, from Telangana & Delhi, have rushed to the incident site & are investigating the root cause of fire. We’re cooperating & working with the local authorities & awaiting a report on the same,” said the EV maker in a statement.

While the Fire Department rescued several people, some people jumped out from the hotel windows in a bid to escape the fire, said the report.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced INR 2 lakh from PMNRF would be paid to the next of kin of each deceased and INR 50,000 would be paid to the injured.

A compensation of INR 3 lakh each for the families of the victims has also been announced by the state government.

The report also said that a case has been registered against the owner of the electric scooter showroom and the manager of the hotel.

Since September last year, over two dozen electric scooters have caught fire in India causing concerns about the safety of EV batteries.

In June this year, a Tata Nexon EV caught fire in Mumbai. Earlier, the cases of fire have been seen mostly from electric scooter startups like Pure EV, Ola Electric and even the largest electric two wheeler maker Hero electric.

In late March, an Ola Electric S1 Pro scooter was caught on fire in Pune and in a tragic incident on the same day, a father-daughter duo died in Vellore in Tamil Nadu when the battery of his Okinawa scooter that was being charged inside the house caught fire. Two more incidents of fire were reported in Tamil Nadu in the month before 20 electric scooters from Jitendra EV caught fire while in transit in a container truck on April 9 near Nashik.

Later, an explosion in the battery of an electric scooter by Coimbatore based Boom Motors killed a 40 year old man in Vijayawada.

In July, consumer protection regulator CCPA said it has issued notices to 4-5 EV manufacturers, taking suo moto cognizance of consumer complaints regarding a series of battery explosions in EVs. Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) Chief Commissioner Nidhi Khare said the authority will commence the hearing on this matter soon.