A woman and an eight-year-old girl died after a brick wall of an industry building fell on them under Chas police station in Bokaro district on Tuesday afternoon.
According to the police, Phoolmani Devi (53) and Laxmi Kumari (8) died after a brick wall of GMC industry suddenly fell down and they were buried alive.
Demanding compensation irked family members of the deceased along with locals blocked the National Highway 23 near Dharamshala more Chas. Vehicles were standing still for seven hours and the blockade still continued, police said.
Meanwhile, SDO Chas Satish Chandra, SDPO Chas, M K Singh, Executive Magistrate Rajesh Barla, BDO Kapil Kumar, Chas PS OC Pramod Kumar, City DSP along with other district administrative officials were in talks with the agitators to lift the blockade.
According to the eyewitness, a wall of the GMC industry about 30 feet in height toppled over Phoolmani Devi, she was taking a bath at hand pump installed in her house just next to the industry.
“About the same time it trapped the little girl Laxmi who was playing nearby,” added Vishwajeet another eyewitness.
Later locals and their family members pulled them unco nscious from underneath piles of bricks and immediately rushed them to hospital where doctors declared them brought dead, said Ravi a local resident.
The GMC industry is an iron cutter factory belonging to Funny Bhushan Singh. After the incident all of the factory staff ran from the spot. Police on hunt for the factory owner and manager, police sources said.
About two km stretch of NH-23 near the incident turned up as police camp as about 150 cops including magistrate deployed there in a bid to avoid any untoward incident.