‘I suddenly woke up to screams, saw people lying motionless’
As soon as I woke up, I saw two or three men shouting for help while others lay motionless. I heard screams from the floor beneath also and realised that the building was on fire
GHAZIABAD: Rizwan, 22, is one of the four survivors of the fire which gutted a three-storey building in Sahibabad’s Shaheed Nagar on Friday morning.
Rizwan, lucky as he was to have survived the fire, however, lost three of his family members in the blaze.
A native of Bareilly, Rizwan used to work at the unauthorised garment factory in Shaheed Nagar along with his brother Ahmad (25) and two cousins, Azad (22) and Nigahban (21). They were hired by Nazakat Ali to work at his factory in September last year.
“Ali offered us the job at ₹ 3,500 per month and also gave us a place to live,” said Rizwan.
Rizwan recalls the night as an act of God. “It was an accident. How can we complain against him (Nazakat Ali)?” he said.
Rizwan said there were 14 people sleeping on the second floor around 2am on Friday.
He claimed that he woke up at around 4.30am on Friday after hearing screams.
“I was sleeping next to the entrance of the floor near the staircase. As soon as I woke up, I saw two or three men shouting for help while others lay motionless. I heard screams from the floor beneath also and realised that the building was on fire. I then tried to switch on the lights but there was no electricity,” he recalls.
Rizwan ran out from the building through the narrow staircase. As soon as he came out, he realised that he was the only one who had made it out.
“I started helping the locals to douse the flames. I tried to renter the building but the fire had engulfed the staircase by then. I could not save my brothers as it was too late by then,” Rizwan said.
He added that after the fire came under control, he rushed to the washroom on the second floor. “The screams had died down and I hoped that maybe my brother or someone else had survived. However, when we broke it open, we found Saleem (30) dead,” he added.
Later, he said, they went to the first floor by breaking the wall through the staircase. Three workers had been charred to death on the floor there.
Another survivor, Fukran (25) saved his life by rushing to the terrace of the building along with Shahbuddin (22) when the fire broke out.
“I was sleeping on the second floor when we woke up to the screams of people. The flames had engulfed the first floor but had not reached our floor. All we could see was the fire ,” said Furkan, who is a native of Bareilly.
Furkan says that a majority of the occupants of the floor died due to suffocation.
The fourth survivor Mohsin was rescued by the fire department officials from the second floor in an unconscious state and is being treated at GTB Hospital..