Two families lose their only breadwinners in Karol Bagh fire

Baghan Rai, one of the victims of the fire in Karol Bagh, was planning to visit his village in Uttar Pradesh to fix the date for his daughter’s wedding. 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.

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.

Baghan Rai was one of the four victims of the fire in an illegal garments manufacturing factory in Delhi’s Karol Bagh. (Sourced)

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.

Pal remembers Aarti as her eldest son. “She was like a son to me who ran her family. I was proud of her,” he said. Aarti’s mother works as a domestic help.

Family members of Ram Naresh had also arrived at RML Hospital to collect his body. Avinash, his nephew, said that they got a call around 3pm that Naresh has sustained critical burns. “The doctors told us that he had died already,” he said. Naresh is survived by a wife, two sons and a daughter.

Harish Kumar, nephew of Aasha, another victim, she had been working in the factory for the past three years.

He said her husband works as a contractual labourer. She is survived by an 18-year-old daughter and two sons aged 14 and 12 years.