Thaindian News

New Delhi, April 29 (IANS) At the numerous pigeonhole units in the industrial township of Udyog Nagar here, work proceeded at its usual mechanical pace Friday, as if untouched by the inferno in a shoe unit in their midst that killed 10 people.

“We have to work if we have to live,” Ramakant, a 40-something labourer at a factory barely 50 metres away, told IANS. The locality is in west Delhi’s Peeragarhi area.

Some 100 meters away from the building that was gutted, around 15 labourers chatted casually about the fire that broke out Wednesday evening and could be put out only after 12 hours. There was anger, but few wanted to express it openly.

Said an unidentified worker at a factory: “There is danger but if the factories are closed, how will we live?”

Inside the factories with closed gates, a range of products gets churned out, such as polymer goods, leather and shoes, mostly of which are highly inflammable. But the workers have greater concern about losing their livelihood and would rather not complain.

They are overwhelmingly migrants, mostly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

“What do we do if we don’t work. The issues of fire safety is for the sahabs (master) to handle,” said Kishan Singh, a worker.

All buildings in the locality have iron gates, which are closed while the workers are inside working.

That was also the case at the three-storey building housing the shoe factory. A key reason the workers got trapped inside was because there were bars on the windows and cartons blocked the passageways.

Police have said there was a clear violation of fire safety norms. While it is still not clear how many workers were inside the factory, 10 charred bodies were taken out Thursday.

“When the building caught fire, we tried to put a ladder and cut the window grills, but the heat and smoke from inside was so intense that we could not cut it,” said Pradeep Kumar, a local.