When no one killed 23 workers in Jalandhar
JALANDHAR: In April 2012, Punjab witnessed its worst industrial disasters in recent memory, when 23 labourers died as a blanket-making factory building of Shital Fibres collapsed.
Not only does it remain an example of poor safety standards but also of travesty of justice — no one was convicted by the lower court in its this February, and the government has not filed an appeal against the acquittal of all five accused, including the owner, business magnate Shital Vij.
The case saw all witnesses, including the kin of the deceased, turn hostile. But the police’s probe remained suspect too.
The case was registered under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC); later sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act were also slapped on Vij for allegedly bribing officials to get the building approved for the factory.
However, a few days after the investigation, a three-member special investigation team (SIT) headed by then additional deputy commissioner of police (ADCP), headquarters, Navjot Mahal concluded that Vij had no role in the collapse.
Two members of the SIT — which had earlier recommended framing of charges — instead said a machine digging land along the factory to lay pipelines was the reason behind the collapse.
But the SIT could not bring on record as to who hired the machine for digging a trench at the back of the building — Vij or the sewerage department.
Both the SIT chief and other member, ACP Balkar Singh, gave divergent and inconclusive statements. No official of the sewerage board was questioned.
Such was the laxity of the prosecution that no lab report of the debris sample — to check quality of material used in the seven-year-old building — was put on the case record.
Behind it was the clout of Vij, who continues to rise and remains among the who’s who of Jalandhar. He leveraged his lead role as head of the city’s religious and social organisations, the industrialist, 70, and buttressed it with his then-new media venture of a daily newspaper. Officials of different departments responsible for industrial safety audit wouldn’t dare enter his factory premises, much less check the safety standards.
Vij contested the assembly elections in 2007 as an independent. The mishap was seen to have dented his image, but has now only become a case-study in how influential industrialists flout safety norms while authorities choose to look the other way.