An under-construction mezzanine floor appears to have collapsed; doctors say prima facie the two must have suffocated as there weren’t any major injuries
The factory where the incident happened. Pic/Anurag Ahire
Two workers died after the mezzanine floor in an under-construction factory collapsed on Saturday, in Bhandup. Locals said they found the youth under the debris. Doctors of a civic-run hospital said they appeared to have suffocated. Police have detained three people, including the owner.
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Doctors at civic-run M T Agarwal hospital in Mulund declared Rajkumar Sahay, 21, and Ramavtar Arjun Yadav, 18, dead on Sunday morning when the incident was reported. Seema Mishra, a resident, said the workers sleep in the factory on most days. Around 7 am, when they did not come out of the factory, another factory worker slammed the shutter of the shop.
“When no one opened the shutter, some people broke the cement sheets and entered Galla. They saw that a part of the under-construction mezzanine floor had collapsed. They open the shutter from the inside,” Mishra said.
The factory where the mezzanine floor collapsed in Bhandup West. Pic/Anurag Ahire
“After opening the shutter, we saw the iron beam was bent and broken from the middle. The floor had completely collapsed on the workers,” said another resident, Durga. They had been working in this steel handle manufacturing factory since the past few months,” said another resident.
Senior Inspector Nitin Unhavane of Bhandup police said the incident happened sometime between 1 am and 7 am. Cops said Sahay is a resident of Uttar Pradesh. The other deceased is also from outside Maharashtra, they added.
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Police have booked owner of the factory, Mahalaxmi Enterprises—Vijay Maruti Shelar, tenants Muhammad Aasif Khan and Mumhhamd Rashid Sheikh, and contractor Raju Adam Sheikh under 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC. Police have detained three of them and are looking for the fourth one.
The factory is located on the Duck Line Road, with slums on the one side and shops, factories and warehouses on the other, said Ismaile Sheikh, another resident. “Some people are saying that they heard a sound around 5 am. Maybe the floor collapsed then,” he added.
A doctor at Agarwal hospital said, “There were no signs of serious injury on their body. They might have died of suffocation from being trapped under the debris. But the actual cause of death will be clear after the post-mortem.”
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