4 workers locked in hosiery unit choke to death after fire
LUDHIANA TRAGEDY Fourstoreyed factory had no ventilation; owner who had locked them from outside has been booked
LUDHIANA: Four workers died of asphyxia after a fire broke out at a four-storeyed hosiery unit, Kalra Knitwear, in Street No. 1 of Kalyan Nagar near Kamla Lohtia SD College, here, in the wee hours of Wednesday. Short circuit is suspected to be the cause of the fire at the unit that was locked from outside,giving the workers no option to escape.
The victims have been identified as Mohammed Azaad, 18, of Bihar; Satya Prakash, 37, of UP; Mohammed Rabaan, 19 and Dhananjay Pandey, 40, of Bihar. Dhananjay and Satya Prakash were permanent employees, while Mohammed Azaad and Rabaan were daily wagers.
Police have booked the unit owner, Sumit Kalra, for culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304 of the IPC). The factory lacked fire safety arrangements and doidn’t have no-objection certificate (NOC) from the fire department.
The workers, who were on the second floor, spotted the fire on the ground about 4am and called Kalra, who alerted the fire brigade. Kalra reached there and opened the shutter of the unit. Kalra and locals tried to enter the premises, but couldn’t due to flames and smoke.
Firefighters found the bodies of the labourers on the third floor. There was no ventilation in the building. Police said Kalra was booked but no arrest was made.
Fire safety officials Maninder Singh and Navrang Singh said after receiving the call at 4:25am, five fire tenders were rushed to the spot and the flames were controlled in one-and-half hours. Fire fighters also had to break the
shutters on upper floors to douse the flames.
MC joint commissioner Kulpreet Singh said they were checking the record of the building and action will be taken against the owner as NOC was not taken from fire department. He said they were also checking whether the owner had the nod to run the hosiery unit.
VICTIM MADE DISTRESS CALL TO RELATIVE
In his police complaint, Divakar
stated that he went to meet Dhananjay at 10pm on Tuesday, but couldn’t see him factory was locked from outside.
Divakar said he received a phone call from Dhananjay at 4:49am that the unit has caught fire. “When I reached the spot, fire fighters were dousing the flames and bodies of all the four were found soon after. It is due to the negligence of the owner that all the four workers died,” Divakar said in his complaint.