A MAJOR tragedy took place at Fancy Purse Store, a shop in famous Love Lane, in Hazratganj on Tuesday evening. First the wall then the ceiling of the shop collapsed claiming life of the shopowner’s son, who got married only five months’ back, and injuring an employee critically.
The incident took place around 6.20 pm. Shop owner Qavi’s son Adnan and an employee Mazhar, who were present there, got trapped under the debris. The customers and others present in the shop ran outside raising an alarm.
Other shopkeepers called up the police. Panic-stricken Qavi’s kin and the employees, who struggled for over an hour, dug out Adnan and Mazhar from under the debris.
Ambulances from a private hospital and Hazratganj fire station rushed Adnan and Mazhar to hospital. However, after battling for another two hours, Adnan succumbed to his injuries. The condition of Mazhar was stated to be stable.
The doctors said the condition of the victims deteriorated following suffocation and not due to injuries.
Surprisingly, the incident did not create any panic among other shopkeepers in the Love Lane as they were seen attending to their customers. According to sources in the Lucknow Municipal Corporation, the building is not at all safe. It was also included in the list of unsafe buildings last year. Notices were issued for the removal of giant roof top hoardings and demolition of buildings nearly one year before.
Traders in the vicinity blamed the building owner for the tragic incident. According to them the building had been purchased by a man close of a mafia turned politician of eastern UP. In fact, the present owner worked on behalf of the mafia, they added. “We are unsafe too but where to go, we don’t have any other source of earning. We are forced to live in such conditions as those people are too powerful. They have even dug a hole on the rooftop. Not only that, they have constructed a makeshift staircases just in middle of the lane, and LMC is simply unable to do anything,” said a trader.
{{/usCountry}}Traders in the vicinity blamed the building owner for the tragic incident. According to them the building had been purchased by a man close of a mafia turned politician of eastern UP. In fact, the present owner worked on behalf of the mafia, they added. “We are unsafe too but where to go, we don’t have any other source of earning. We are forced to live in such conditions as those people are too powerful. They have even dug a hole on the rooftop. Not only that, they have constructed a makeshift staircases just in middle of the lane, and LMC is simply unable to do anything,” said a trader.
{{/usCountry}}On being contacted, municipal commissioner VP Singh said, “We are collecting first hand information about the building. As I have just taken over the charge, I don’t know much about the building.”
Additional municipal commissioner Santosh Kumar said, “the shopkeepers install huge hoarding without worrying about the state of their building, they construct their shops without permission or professional consultancy. In this case the shop keeper was constructing the shop from inside, which caused the incident.”