Gurugram: What caused Manesar slum fire? NGT team seeks report

GURUGRAM: A National Green Tribunal (NGT) team on Saturday visited the slum in Manesar where a massive fire gutted around 300 shanties on April 26. The team, led by Justice Preetam Pal (retired) of the NGT, asked the district administration to submit a detailed about what could have caused the fire and the steps taken by it to prevent such blazes in the future.
Around 10pm on April 26, the fire had started to engulf the slum. Fanned by strong winds, it spread across the area at a much faster rate and turned everything in its way into ashes. It took the fire tenders around 10 hours to douse the flames. One woman died and three were injured.
Officials said they were probing if the fire had started in a nearby garbage site. Smoke billowing out of the flames had covered the nearby areas and residents had complained about pollution. On Saturday, the NGT team also visited the dumpsites in Manesar and Bawal.
DCP (Manesar) Manveer Singh, who was accompanying the NGT team, said an FIR had been registered against unknown persons and the statements of the three injured persons had been recorded. “All the three injured persons are under treatment at different hospitals,” the DCP said.
The police said they were also probing if the fire had started in the shanty where the woman died. Singh said it was possible that the woman might have gone to sleep keeping a stove on, causing the fire to start there. Around 500 families have been left homeless and lost their entire savings in the fire.
Munish Sharma, the municipal commissioner, said steps had been taken for door-to-door collection of garbage. The garbage collected from Manesar is dumped in the landfill in Bawal. “Garbage generated from industries is illegally dumped near the area where the fire slum stood,” said Sharma. He agreed that scrap dealers collected garbage from such locations.
For the families living in the slum, dreams built over the years were shattered overnight. Most of the earning members did odd jobs in the city and had bought essentials such as utensils, TV sets and basic furniture with their modest income. All of them were gutted in the fire.