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Day after fire tragedy, bereaved families accuse hosiery unit owner of apathy
Ludhiana hosiery unit owner, who is on the run, has been booked for causing death due to negligence; no compensation has been announced yet
A day after a major fire at a hosiery unit in Ram Nagar that claimed three lives, grieving families of deceased employees — who had been working at the unit for over four decades — lamented the employer’s apathy and indifference to the tragedy.
The unit owner, Arun Mehra, had earlier been booked for causing death due to negligence. No compensation, meanwhile, had been announced at the time of filing the report.
Ravinder Chopra, a 61-year-old resident of Chandan Nagar, one of the deceased, had served at the Ganesh Traders Corporation for 42 years.
Criticising the unit owner for failing to as much as send a word of acknowledgement for his father’s four-decade service, Gaurav Chopra, the deceased’s son, the owner simply disappeared and made no effort to aid in the rescue efforts.
Echoing the sentiment, Umesh Kumar, the son of Inderjit Singh, who also passed away in the incident, said they went looking for the factory owner after the fire to no avail. “Despite attempts to contact him by phone, he was unresponsive. He could have at least come to visit the families,” he added.
Family members of the third deceased, Mohinder Kumar, were not in a state to talk about the incident.
Postmortem conducted
Dr Charan Kamal, a forensic expert at the civil hospital, said the postmortems had been conducted for all three deceased, following which their bodies were handed over to their respective families.
Inderjit Singh, who sustained serious burns in the incident, while the other two victims passed away due to asphyxiation and had less than 10% burn injuries, the civil surgeon added.
Two employees admitted to ICU
Besides the deaths, the fire at the unit located in a residential area also left two others critically injured. The duo — Ashwani Kumar and Gulshan Kumar — are undergoing treatment at the Dayanand Medical College and Hospital (DMCH). Hospital authorities said the victims were admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and are under observation.
The factory operated out of a double-storey residential building for years. Around two dozen fire tenders were pressed into service and firefighting operations took more than five hours. Five workers trapped inside the complex were evacuated during the rescue operations.
Congested lanes pose challenge to firemen
Detailing the rescue operations, fire officer Maninder Singh said the old and congested locality posed a challenge to firefighters. Additionally, he added that there was a delay in information about the trapped workers.
Although fire extinguishers were present at the location, it is possible that the staff was not trained on how to use them effectively to extinguish flames, the fire officer added.
