Nuh fire: Labourers homeless, broke and hungry after factory cordoned off

Some labourers said that they had decided to return to their villages, but were waiting for their salaries.

More than 56 labourers at a Nuh factory where two Chinese engineers and one worker died in a fire due to an oven blast on Sunday have been rendered homeless and penniless since the accident. The workers alleged that they had to vacate the campus they used to live and work at after police cordoned off the area on Sunday night.

Labourers sit outside Pusilin Biotechnology Private Limited, a pharmaceutical raw material manufacturing company, in IMT Rojka Meo in Nuh, where a fire broke out on Sunday, killing three persons. (Parveen Kumar/Ht photos)

The three persons were charred to death on Sunday after a massive fire broke out at Pusilin Biotechnology Private Limited, a pharmaceutical raw material manufacturing company, in IMT Rojka Meo in Nuh. This was the fourth fire that broke out in IMT Rojka Meo in the last two years, but it was the first time that a loss of human lives had been reported.

Some labourers said that they had decided to return to their villages, but were waiting for their salaries. Uttam Kumar (22), a labourer from Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh who had been living at the factory for the last two years and witnessed the blast, said on Monday that all the labourers were without cash, clothes and bedding. “None of the management came to see us or tell us what to do. Our stuff is lying inside, we are not allowed to enter the factory, no temporary arrangements have been made for us to live. We have not eaten anything for more than a day, and have been sitting under a tree in the scorching heat,” he said.

Mohammad Shahid (40), a resident of Bihar, who has been working at the factory for the last two years, said he has been trying to speak with the general manager of the company, but he has not got any response. “We lost our friend and two senior people; but it is not easy to stay under the open sun and survive without food,” he said.

No relief service had been organised for them till Monday evening. Despite repeated attempts, the factory management and the district administration did not respond to calls and messages from Hindustan Times.