At a colony near Mundka, several homes in mourning: ‘The tragedy has swept everyone here’

A mother of three children, Mushrat (37), started working at the CCTV camera and router manufacturing company last year — the first time she took up a job — at a salary of Rs 6,500, packing and marking stickers on cameras. At her maternal home on Sunday afternoon, her mother Sabra Khatoon and brother sat in gloom after having made rounds trying to identify her among the bodies at Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital.

Mushrat sought work to support her family after her husband’s work of whitewashing for daily wages taking a hit during the pandemic. Like other women in Bhagya Vihar, she had got the job from the reference of a neighbour who was also killed in the fire. “Her husband had gone to his village in Odisha for a few days, so I was staying with her at their home in Parvesh Nagar to keep her company and look after my grandchildren. I last spoke to her when she left for work,” said Sabra Khatoon.

Located less than 5 km from the building in Mundka, Bhagya Vihar painted a picture of a colony in mourning. Of the 27 confirmed deaths, 21 were women. Of the eight victims identified so far, five were women. Many of them were from Bhagya Vihar.

Among the eight identified on Saturday, two women from the colony — Ranju Devi (34) and her distant relative Yashoda Devi (35) — lived in adjacent lanes, a few decrepit houses separating theirs. Outside both houses, a white tent had been erected as neighbours and relatives sat in mourning.

Ranju’s husband, Santosh, a labourer, said, “We were holding on to faint hope that she may have survived. Yesterday, we went to the hospital and identified her body from her silver ring, anklets and nail paint. She was wearing a blue suit and aubergine dupatta that day. Her body was partially burnt.”

Ranju is survived by her husband and three children — a 15-year-old daughter and two sons, aged 9 and 12. She had been working at the camera assembly unit for over six months, earning Rs 6,500 a month. “There is no one to look after the children now. Earlier, she worked on a contract at a syringe making firm, where she was paid around Rs 3,000 and often lesser, depending on the weight of the assembled load. She joined here as it was a better paying job and was closer to home. It helped us pay our rent,” said Santosh.

Barely 100 metres away, Yashoda’s brother, Surjit, said, “Her husband and other relatives have gone to Haridwar for the last rites. Yashoda worked in camera printing and earned Rs 6,500-7,000. She had given the reference to many women from the colony and helped them get a job at the company. They all went to work on buses or shared autorickshaws. We are all distraught.”

Yashoda’s friend Poonam said: “We all are grieving. I don’t know what will I do to survive. Amidst all this loss, I am out of a job. The tragedy has swept everyone here.” She said she survived since she had taken a two-day leave from work as she was unwell.

A few doors from Yashoda’s home, the grief in 18-year-old Nisha’s home was silent but desperate. Her family had not been able to identify her body, but they presumed she had died in the fire. Nisha, with her salary of Rs 7,500 per month, was the sole earner for her parents and seven siblings. Her father had not worked for almost a decade and her mother was anchored to home by a sickly 10-year-old daughter and a two-month-old infant.

In the lanes of small homes, theirs was the smallest and barest – a family of nine living in a one-room house, the ceiling fan attached to the tin roof barely higher than 6 feet off the ground. Nisha had not completed school and had started work two years ago.

“She had called me during lunch break that day to ask me what I was eating… She worked because she had to, and all she thought about was providing for her family. A relative of hers had recently spoken about getting her married but she said she needed to earn for her family. She wanted to be able to get them a better home, this gets flooded every time it rains,” said Nisha’s close friend Pinky Kumari, who also works at Mundka.

In the same lane, two doors from Mushrat’s house, Sweety alias Mona (32) remains missing. Family members said they had stopped looking for her body at hospitals. “Umeed lag nhi rhi bachne ki (We do not have much hope),” said her husband, Manoj Kumar, sobbing as he spoke.

“At 4.30 pm that day, she called and said ‘aag lag gyi hai… nikal nhi paa rhe hein (I am unable to escape from the fire). Her voice was not clear. After that, the phone went off,” said Kumar.

Sweety, who had two children — a 14-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son — had started working at the company last year. “It was her first job. We have still lodged a missing persons’ complaint with police,” said Kumar.

Sweety’s friend, Shazia Parveen (25), lives at the end of the lane. Parveen survived, jumping out after grabbing a rope, and suffering burns on both her hands, which were heavily bandaged. “I barely managed to escape and passed out. I saw that Sweety had fallen unconscious in front of me. There was so much chaos,” she said, her voice breaking.

A mother of three, Parveen said she started working at the company two months ago: “The pay was better and we were told it would increase in a few months, with additional benefits like PF. The office was close to the colony. A lot of women had been connected here through this job, and now through this tragedy.”