Fire at defunct cloth mill,foul play suspected

The NTC owned mill had entered into a joint venture with Future Group,but is not in production currently. The private company has a store on the premises that sells clothing material.

Ramesh Shinde,who works in the Tata Mills next to Gold Mohur Mills said the gates of the mills always remained closed. “Most of the times the gates remain closed unless goods are brought in for storage. There is a shop inside the compound that opened a few weeks ago and since then the gates have been opened,” Shinde said.

Officials from the fire brigade said that the fire broke out at more than one place. “The fire had broken out in about 4-5 places and spread quickly because of the wooden items that were stored in godowns,” said Nitin Raut,head of the wireless department of the fire brigade.

Though fire officials have not been able to ascertain the cause of the fire,they did not rule out the possibility of foul play. Chetan Waghela,who stays in a nearby chawl said that he had seen cylinders being taken inside the premises on Wednesday morning. “Around 8:30 am in the morning,I saw around 20 LPG cylinders being taken inside the mill,” claimed Waghela.

“In the past fire broke out in several mills as the owners had vested interest and were keen on shutting it down,but since this mill was not functional,conspiracy cannot be ruled out,” said Datta Iswalkar,leader of the Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti. In the past New Grade Mills,Morarji Mills and Phoenix Mills were gutted and foul play was not ruled out.