Bawana factory fire: A night spent without any sleep — or answers

Adding to the chaos was a crowd that kept guessing the number of dead. “They are hiding the rest of the dead inside the factory,” shouted one, as Delhi Fire Chief Atul Garg addressed juniors. “Unfortunate… It is not page one news for us, but a big tragedy,” he said.

By 11.20 pm, the crowd outside Maharishi Valmiki Hospital had grown quiet, but anxious. “We have no mortuary here,” a hospital staffer reasoned. A woman retorted: “You have been fooling us all along. We will set this hospital on fire.”

The crowd raced through one of the closed exits to reach the casualty ward, only to be stopped by security guards. “This is the female observation area. Please, we are trying to help,” a guard pleaded. “We are one of you.” Nearby, a man told inspector Dharam Dev: “You know where the bodies are, let us have a look.” Dev replied: “The dead have been taken to several other hospitals. What can we say, except that we are there for you.”

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A worker shows yellow marks on her hands, that she says he got from handling gunpowder (Express Photo/Amit Mehra)

The crowd eventually had its way and entered the casualty ward, not sure of what to expect. As doctors reiterated there were no bodies here, anger gave way to despair. “Our relatives have also died. There is no point going back to Ambedkar Hospital,” reasoned Akhtar. The crowd relented, and most got into PCR vans and a police truck to leave. An elderly couple stayed behind.

Read | Bawana factory fire: The Making of a Tinderbox

At the site of the fire, two camps gathered around midnight. One was Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s, addressing media amid shouts of ‘Kejriwal murdabad’; the other Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari’s. “The Home Minister informed me immediately. Their councillor has not even arrived,” Tiwari said. After announcements regarding compensation, both groups left.Read | Bawana factory fire: Whose job was it to keep a check? Civic body, AAP pass the buck

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal meets relatives who kin who lost their lives in the fire at Bawana factory in New Delhi on Sunday. (Express Photo/Praveen Khanna)

An hour later, at Metro Vihar, where most victims stayed, Feroz struggled with the keys to his house. His sister, Mubeena, recalled how their mother was almost electrocuted working at a water bottling factory. She left that job, only to be killed here. A while later, Chanchal, Meena and Rakhi stepped out of their homes, their hands, clothes and faces yellow — a fallout of working at the unit where the killer coloured firecrackers were produced.