Two families lose their lone breadwinners to the blaze
NEWDELHI: Baghan Rai, the differently abled man who died in the Karol Bagh fire on Monday afternoon, has left behind a son who is speech and hearing impaired and a daughter who was to be married soon. Rai, his family’s lone breadwinner, was planning to visit his native village in Uttar Pradesh’s Deoria to fix the date for his daughter’s wedding.
Rai’s cousin, Umesh Kumar, who rushed to the garment manufacturing unit where Rai worked, said back in his village, Rai’s family was waiting for him.
“Today, I called up his wife and told her that he is no more. His son is unemployed. Rai has three daughters, two of them got married in the past three years. He was now planning to get his youngest daughter married,” Kumar said.
Kumar said Rai had been working at the factory since 1990. “He was one of the oldest employees here and lived in a rented room in Sabzi Mandi in Delhi,” the cousin said.
The fire also claimed the life of the sole breadwinner of another family. Aarti, 26, who had been working at the factory for past one year, had last met her family on Diwali, as she barely used to take days off.
“She was my eldest daughter. I tried getting her married but she always refused, saying she first wants to help me in getting her two younger sisters married,” said Aarti’s father Inder Pal, who lives in the DDA flats, Vijay Vihar.
Family of Ram Naresh said they got a call around 3pm that he has sustained critical burns. “The doctors told us that he had died already,” they said. Naresh is survived by a wife, two sons and a daughter.
Harish Kumar, nephew of Aasha, another victim, said she had been working for the past three years.