Forty three people died in a devastating fire that ripped through an
illegal factory in north Delhi’s congested Anaj Mandi early on Saturday.
Early Sunday
morning, Monu Aggarwal got a call from his friend of many years Muhammad
Musharraf. The odd hour of the call notwithstanding, nothing could have
prepared Aggarwal for what he heard next.
“There is no escape route, no option at
all... ghar ka dyaan rakhna,” 30-year-old Musharraf told his friend from his
home town in Bijnor.
Hours later, waiting for Musharaff’s body,
Aggarwal said he had tried to encourage his friend to find a way out. “I could
hear screams of people in the background,” said Aggarwal.
He played the conversation that he had
recorded when he realised what was happening. The voice was that of a person
who had lost hope.
“I can’t even breathe,” Musharraf is heard
saying.
In Uttar
Pradesh’s Moradabad, a phone call from Sahjad, one of the trapped workers, woke
his parents up at 5 am.
“He sounded like he was sobbing. He kept
saying that the building was on fire, that it was a massive blaze and that he
may not survive. His father woke us up immediately,” said his uncle Mohammad
Ilias.
The call dropped and Sahjad’s parents
couldn’t connect to him anymore. Soon, they got to know that Sahjad was dead.
Another worker, Raju, too called his
friend, Furqan Ahmed, while being trapped inside the building. Ahmed, who works
in another factory in the same neighbourhood, said that he received the call at
4.50 am.
“His voice was unclear but he begged me to
rescue him. He said there was fire and smoke all around. I asked if he and
others called the police for help, but I couldn’t hear his response. The
conversation lasted only 30-40 seconds,” Ahmed said.
At the time of going to press, Raju’s
whereabouts were unknown.
“I am trapped. Won’t come out alive,” were
the final words of 28-year-old Bihar native Shakir Hussain, a father of three,
during his phone call to his pregnant wife before a cloud of toxic smoke
overpowered his senses during a major fire at a building in north Delhi on
Sunday.
Zakir Hussain, 32, recalled the
nightmarish experience of his younger brother who was brought dead to the LNJP
Hospital here after the horrific blaze that has claimed 43 lives and left many
others injured.
The Hussains, hailing from Madhubani
district of Bihar, had planned to go shopping on Sunday, but fate willed
otherwise.
“After getting trapped in the billowing
smoke, Shakir made the last call to his pregnant wife and told her -- ‘I am
trapped. Won’t come out alive’,” recalled the tearful brother.
Shakir leaves behind three children, two girls and a boy.
“He was about to have another child, but
he left his kids fatherless,” Zakir said.
“He was about to have another child, but
he left his kids fatherless,” Zakir said. Shakir had been working in a
cap-manufacturing unit on the fourth floor for the last three years, the
brother said after identifying his body.
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