MUMBAI: A week after a major fire gutted around 50 tenements and manufacturing units at Madanpura in Byculla, locals found a 27-year-old labourer’s decomposed body inside a locked toilet buried under the debris. The discovery raises concerns about lethargy on part of authorities to check sites for bodies after a disaster.Jibrail Shaikh died in the blaze that broke out on December 20 night. Fire brigade officials said after dousing the blaze, they conducted cooling operations and left the spot, while workers from the local civic office cleared the debris. “As the area is congested and there are several encroachments, the debris removal was slow and we were unable to locate the body that was inside a locked toilet beneath the debris,” said an officer.
When Shaikh’s co-workers realized he was missing a day after the fire, a few suspected he was trapped in the debris, while others assumed he had been rescued and he had returned to his hometown in Bihar. “Shaikh, a father of three, had come to Mumbai to work at a leather bag manufacturing unit just three days prior to the blaze,” said Amjad Khan, a social worker.
Hameed Shaikh, president of Nakshed Cooperative Housing Society who also owns a bag manufacturing unit, said that on Tuesday, a few of his employees complained about a foul odour coming from the second floor. “I told them to check the place and when they returned, they looked scared. They told me there was a man’s body. We alerted the police and fire brigade,” he added.
Agripada police sent the body for post-mortem to Nair hospital and registered a case of accidental death.