This is an archive article published on August 30, 2023
Pimpri Chinchwad blaze: Fire officials had tough time breaking open 8 locks of hardware shop; MSEDCL denies short circuit
Four members of a family, including 2 teenagers, were killed in the fire that broke out at the shop-cum-house around 4.45 am in the Purnanagar area. Shop had highly inflammable materials such as paints, turpentine, thinners, and chemicals.
As the blaze rapidly engulfed the residential complex and smoke filled their flats, the residents rushed below and on the way they heard screams from inside the shop.
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Pimpri Chinchwad blaze: Fire officials had tough time breaking open 8 locks of hardware shop; MSEDCL denies short circuit
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“Bahut dhuan hain uncle, kuch dikhai nahi de raha hain (There is too much of smoke…I can’t see anything).” These were apparently the last words 15-year-old Bhavesh Chaudhary from behind the shutter after fire engulfed their hardware and electrical shop in Pimpri Chinchwad on Wednesday.
Four members of a family, including Bhavesh, his brother Sachin, 13, and their parents Chimnaram Benaram Chaudhary, 48, and Namrata, 40, were killed in the fire that broke out at the shop-cum-house around 4.45 am at Purnanagar area. The bodies were found burnt beyond recognition by the fire officials who broke open the shutters of the shop, 45 minutes after the blaze erupted.
“The shutter of shop was locked tightly with eight locks – four from the inside and four from outside. We reached the spot around 5.30 am. It took another half an hour for us to break the shutters. When the shutters were broken, there were no survivors. The four family members were burnt to death,” said fire official Uday Wankhede.
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The Chaudhary family had been living on the attic of their shop called Sachin Hardware and Electrical Shop for the past 10 years. The shop is located on the ground floor of the Puja Heights residential society in Purnanagar.
It was only a day ago the family had returned after a trip to Jammu and Kashmir.
As the blaze rapidly engulfed the residential complex and smoke filled their flats, the residents rushed below and on the way they heard screams from inside the shop. A few of the people banged on the shutter.
“It is then we heard Bhavesh say ‘Bahut dhooha hai uncle, kuch dikhay nahin de raha hain..’These were the only words we heard. After that there was no noise or screams for help,” said Dilip Patil, a resident of Puja Heights, who lives with his family right on top of Sachin Hardware Shop.
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After the shutters were broken open by the fire officials, Bhavesh was found lying nearby while three other bodies were found at different spots in the shop.
Wankhede said the shop had highly inflammable materials like paints, turpentine, thinners, chemicals and several other items with which the shop was choc-a-bloc. “Entire shop was destroyed in the fire. At this juncture, we cannot say what caused the fire. It could be a short circuit or some other reason,” he said.
Officials said it needs to be probed how the family got permission to set up an attic and live in the shop. “Shops such as hardware are dangerous to live as they contain hazardous materials. The family had set up an attic and was living there. They had a side entrance door which was locked from inside. It seems none of the family members could reach the door to escape as the fire spread quickly and the smoke filled up the shop,” the fire brigade officials said.
An employee of a shop next to Sachin Hardware broke down on hearing the news of the tragedy. “Around 8.30 pm when I was closing our shop, Chimnaram showed me pictures of their trip to Kashmir. He looked very happy when he was showing the picture. Only yesterday they had returned from Kashmir and today morning, this tragedy happened,” said the employee wiping away his tears.
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The residents at Puja Heights said the family got along well with other residents. “They were quiet, friendly, and mingled with everyone in our society. They never quarrelled with anyone. We are all shocked at the tragedy,” said Sachin Sapke, a resident.
Meanwhile, the civic administration said it has set up a committee to investigate the cause of the fire accident. On the other hand, the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Co. Ltd (MSEDCL) denied that the incident was due to a short circuit.
“When we got the information that fire had erupted, we disconnected power to the area. MSEDCL engineers and employees immediately reached the spot. Our team found that electricity meter and service wires were in tact. Our team did not find short-circuit in our system…A joint committee of various government departments will conduct a probe into the incident,” the MSEDCL stated.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More
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