UNIDENTIFIED PERSONS torched the record room at the closed Hukamchand Mill premises today. According to Mill Mazdoor Karmachari Sangh president Narendra Shrivansh and general secretary Kishanlal Bokre, the fire broke out in the record room at around 11 am.
They had noticed in the past two days that some persons had been stealing old records, probably for selling them as scrap.
The record room houses information on almost everything since the conception of the mill in 1915. Documents and other papers could be found scattered every morning beneath a broken window on the back wall of the record room, he said.
This morning also some persons were seen near the spot and some sort of dispute occurred between them, soon after which the building caught fire.
Those present on the spot contacted Vijay, the representative of contractor PD Goyal, who is demolishing the area to clear the land.
Vijay called the fire brigade, which doused the fire. It is learnt that only about 1,500 old records kept on the upper storey of the record room were destroyed and others mostly on the ground floor remained safe.
Bokre accused Goyal for having left the boundary wall broken due to which such incidents had started occurring on the once-safe campus. A complaint was lodged with the Pardeshipura police and official liquidator R L Saraswat in this connection by old mill hands.
Bokre accused Goyal for having left the boundary wall broken due to which such incidents had started occurring on the once-safe campus. A complaint was lodged with the Pardeshipura police and official liquidator R L Saraswat in this connection by old mill hands.