Severely burnt victim of Ghatkopar fire missing in police and BMC list

Despite Bavilkar being severely affected, her name does not appear in the list of injured people released by either the police or the BMC. Bavilkar works as an administrative clerk in the same private firm that the deceased Korsi Dedhia worked at

Mumbai: Dombivali resident Anjali Bivalkar’s family is waiting outside a ward in Airoli’s National Burns Centre, fervently hoping for some positive news from the doctors. One of the people most severely affected by the fire that broke out in a Ghatkopar commercial complex on Saturday, Bivalkar, 47, incurred 70 percent burns and is on the ventilator.

Severely burnt victim of Ghatkopar fire missing in police and BMC list

Her husband Ajay, 51, and their 21-year-old son are inconsolable. “The thread that bound our whole family together is today in danger,” said Ajay. She is in such bad shape that her eyeballs are bulging out. My wife is a very delicate person whom I have always protected from harm. I am afraid that our family is on the verge of collapse.”

Despite Bavilkar being severely affected, her name does not appear in the list of injured people released by either the police or the BMC. Bavilkar works as an administrative clerk in the same private firm that the deceased Korsi Dedhia worked at. Their employer Hitesh Karani was among the rescuers who reached the building along with the police officials.

Speaking about the incident, local BJP leader Ajay Bagal, who was also at the rescue site, said the fire was doused much before the fire brigade could arrive. “Some of the people in the building broke off a grill to enter the other building,” he said. “The staff of Parekh Hospital perhaps had some fire training, which they utilised along with all the fire-extinguishers they could find in the hospital and nearby shops.”

Karani was out for a meeting around 2 pm when a driver working with the firm called to tell him about the fire. “The driver and many other people managed to flee the building through a connector between our building and Parekh Hospital nearby,” he said. “Five other employees were still in the building when he called me.”

When the fire was doused at around 3.30 pm, Karani went into the building through the same connector on the terrace. “It was I and three policemen who found Korsibhai, two students and Anjali madam on the fifth floor. The first three were taken to Rajawadi Hospital immediately while Anjali was sent straight to the National Burns Unit,” he said, refuting the claim that other colleagues had told Korsi Dedhia, the man who perished in the fire, to not venture out of the office.

Medical aspirant Tanya Kamble (18), a Kurla resident, is undergoing treatment at the burns centre too. Meanwhile, her classmate Eidish Sahetya (18), a resident of Sindhi Colony in Chembur, is still undergoing treatment at Rajawadi Hospital. “There are several burn marks on his face, arms and torso. He is still on the ventilator. Even the reconstructive surgeries that he will require are going to be expensive. We can afford it but I don’t know how middle-class families will cope,” said his father Vijay.

Local social worker Piyush Das, who was also among the rescuers, said that Eidish’s classmates told him that Eidish made multiple rounds of the building to help people escape the building unharmed. “At first, the students in the coaching centre were breathing through wet cloths over their faces and kept the windows open. Later, some of them saw other people escaping through the connector on the terrace,” he said. It was after that that some students, including Eidish, took it upon themselves to guide other classmates.