By Julian Roberts-Grmela and Thomas Tracy
New York Daily News
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NEW YORK — A drunken Queens man broke into his estranged wife’s home early Thursday and sparked a massive caught-on-video gas explosion that destroyed the house and left multiple NYPD cops injured, officials said.
Suspect Anroop Parasaram was found dead “beneath the rubble caused by the explosion,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
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Cops were called to settle a domestic dispute inside the basement apartment of the three-story home on 130th St. near 109th Ave. in South Ozone Park about 2:45 a.m.
But as they unlocked the door to the home — with the key Parasaram’s wife gave them — a massive explosion sent glass shards and rubble raining down upon them, dramatic body-worn camera video shared by the NYPD shows.
With half the building gone and cops screaming “You’re good?” to their colleagues, the officers managed to pull stunned residents from the rubble of the home, including several children, the footage shows.
The chaos begean when Parasaram, 50, showed up at the home with a knife, forcing his way into the basement apartment by shoving an air conditioner out of a window, police say.
Once inside, he terrorized his estranged wife, her daughter and her two grandchildren, NYPD Assistant Chief Christopher McIntosh said at a briefing Thursday morning.
Surveillance video recovered by cops shows the suspect walking to the area carrying two large bags with yellow cannisters inside, police said.
When cops responded, they were met by the wife, who said Parasaram had locked himself in the basement apartment. There was also a heavy smell of gas, she said.
She gave police the keys to the basement apartment and as cops attempted to gain access a “massive fiery explosion erupted,” McIntosh said.
“(The officers) were violently thrown off their feet with some thrown into gates at the residence,” the chief said. “Even after that several officers rushed into the danger and went into the building and located one person and helped them move to safety.”
Seven NYPD officers and a sergeant were injured in the blast.
Multiple FDNY fire units were called in to battle the five-alarm blaze. The injured cops were taken to Jamaica Hospital with minor burns, McIntosh said. One cop suffered a deep gash to his head that required stitches.
“We got very lucky today,” McIntosh said. “This could have turned out very differently.”
“The dangerous explosion was so powerful that it knocked them off their feet, but they stood up, got up and ran into the burning home, because that’s what the job required,” he added. “Thankfully, today, luck was on their side.”
During an unrelated press conference in the Bronx , Tisch said that all the injured officers were later released from the hospital.
The home collapsed in the fire, FDNY Chief of Department John Esposito said. Everyone in the building has been accounted for except for Parasaram.
Parasaram’s body was found in the rubble several hours later. His wife, who remained at the scene throughout the day, wept as she watched first responders cover his mangled body with a sheet.
She declined to speak to reporters as relatives escorted her from the home.Tisch said that Parasaram had a “documented history of domestic violence.”
While the cause of the explosion was still being investigated, police believe he “set fire to the location with an unknown liquid accelerant,” the police commissioner said.
Police on Thursday were going through Parasaram’s car, which was found nearby the scene, Tisch said.
Parasaram was intoxicated when he broke into the building, McIntosh said. Over the years, cops have been called to the basement apartment “multiple times” to quell domestic disputes between Parasaram and his wife, police said.
The estranged husband had three past orders of protection filed against him barring him from going near his wife and family, McIntosh said. The last order of protection expired on Nov. 29, 2024 , police said.
More than 300 firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics arrived at the home, which was still burning as of 9 a.m. , Esposito said.
Homes on both sides of the address were damaged, Esposito said, adding that the FDNY was working with the Red Cross to provide assistance to the 16 people left displaced by the explosion.
“We were thinking there was something with the basement, something wrong. She said, ‘No. He set a fire,” said nextdoor neighbor Leikram Singh, whose home was also severely damaged in the blaze and couldn’t return to his home Thursday.
Singh, 67, was sleeping when the explosion occurred.
“My wife started screaming ‘Fire!’” Singh recalled. “I rushed and get my son, everybody, out.”
Once his family was safe, Singh went back and tried to douse his home with a garden hose as firefighters arrived and pulled him away.
“I’m feeling terrible. Very terrible. I’m mad with the guy,” he said of Parasaram. “He’s the one who caused all this.”
Marie Jean , who lives across the street, let Parasaram’s wife and children stay in her home as firefighters doused the blaze.
“She was so depressed,” Jean, 82, said. “She don’t talk.”
Jean had never met her neighbors before Thursday.
“I’ve been living in this neighborhood for 53 years and I never see them,” she said.
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