Rajkot: As Chandu Bhai prepared to push his 19-year-old daughter Asha’s burnt body into the electric crematorium, he recounted the terror of the massive fire that ripped through Rajkot’s TRP Gaming Zone Saturday evening. He had watched helplessly as the flames engulfed Asha’s workplace, unable to save her.
“I was near TRP Gaming Zone on 25 May when the fire broke out. I reached the spot at around 5:10 pm and tried to enter the building to save my daughter, but there was a blast which brought the entire structure down,” Chandu said through tears, minutes before cremating his daughter. “If the fire brigade had come on time, everyone would’ve been saved.”
Chandu Bhai and other eyewitnesses who spoke to ThePrint allege a delay of at least one hour in the fire brigade’s response. There are also discrepancies on record about when the fire started.
The FIR registered by the police said the fire broke out around 5 pm, while the commissioner of police claimed in a statement to the media that it started at 5.30 pm.
Chandu said he reached the scene at 5:10 pm, by which time the fire had already been burning for a while. He claimed they waited at least another 45 minutes before a fire brigade arrived.
The fire department’s account corroborates this estimate of their arrival, give or take a few minutes. “The first vehicle from our zone left at 5:43 and reached at 5:47,” said Ilash Kher, Chief Fire Officer of Rajkot district.
However, when asked about the exact time the fire broke out, Kher said the department didn’t have that information and that he didn’t know when the first call came in.
The FIR filed by sub-inspector PB Trajiya mentions that the first call the police received was at 5:47 pm.
ThePrint attempted to contact Gujarat Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Subhash Trivedi by phone and WhatsApp to inquire about the investigation’s findings regarding the fire’s start time, but has not yet received a response.
At least 32 people, including nine children, have died and over a dozen are missing after the fire in the game zone. The Gujarat government has suspended seven officials, including two police inspectors and Rajkot municipal corporation staff, for failing to do their jobs.
The Gujarat High Court also pulled up the municipal corporation Monday amid reports that the gaming zone lacked necessary safety measures and stored flammable materials inside.
An FIR has been registered against six partners of the TRP Gaming Zone on charges of culpable homicide. Four have been arrested so far.
Mounting anger
Chandu Bhai recounts the fear, desperation, and chaos at the TRP Gaming Zone on the evening of the fire. He says he ran around frantically, calling for his daughter, but she never answered. Instead, he managed to rescue two children who had escaped the building. Asha, he believes, died while trying to save customers at TRP.
A bright student and the youngest in her family, Asha aspired to join the armed forces. She had just taken her 12th board exams in March.
Along with nearly three dozen others, her life was cut short by the fire, believed to have been caused by welding work. The gaming zone had been operating for over two years without the mandatory No Objection Certificate from the fire department.
Asha’s remains are among the seven that have been identified and released to their families. The remaining families are still anxiously waiting to say their final goodbyes. The administration is awaiting DNA test results, which have been difficult to conduct due to the severe damage to the bodies.
Grief and anger alike were palpable at the Civil Hospital Monday, where families waited in 48°C heat to take their loved ones home. At one point, a scuffle broke out between mediapersons and a bereaved family member.
But most relatives reserve their ire for the Rajkot administration, blaming them for letting the gaming zone function while openly flouting safety norms.
“Photos of bureaucrats posing at TRP are viral. They used to go to the gaming zone for free. All these rich people have political connections and get away with everything. They couldn’t bother to conduct proper checks,” said Mehul Bagda, whose younger brother Kalpesh went missing after the fire.
The family is holding on to a thin sliver of hope that Kalpesh may still be alive. “We’re hoping he’s fine,” Mehul added.
Outrage over the gaming zone functioning despite failing to procure the necessary permissions and licences from the Rajkot municipal corporation even echoed in the Gujarat High Court, which has taken suo motu cognisance of the fire, calling it a “man-made disaster”.
“We do not have faith in the state machinery now,” said a two-member bench of the court Monday. “All this was going on for two-and-a-half years, so did you fall asleep? Or did you go blind?”
Rajkot police commissioner Raju Bhargava as well as municipal commissioner Anand Babu Patel have been transferred from Rajkot, along with other senior officials.
‘Fire brigade was late’
Accounts vary on when the fire at TRP Gaming Zone began, with reports ranging from 4 pm to 6 pm.
Chandu Bhai, who maintained that he had received a call about a fire at 5 pm and rushed to the scene within 10 minutes, claimed it had already spread by then.
“I didn’t think it would be this big,” he said, adding that within 10 minutes of arriving, a blast brought the entire structure down.
Another eyewitness, a 60-year-old woman who stays right behind the gaming zone, said the smoke was visible in their colony by 4:45 pm.
“I was reading Sunderkand (a part of the Ramayana), which I sit for at 4:30 pm every day. By 4:45 pm, smoke had engulfed the entire area and there was panic in the colony,” she recalled.
Within half an hour, the area was rocked by the sound of a blast, she added.
“These are rich people, we don’t want to talk against them,” the woman said. “That this commercial establishment was running in a residential area shows you how much politicians favour the (owners).”
Kripal Rana lost five family members, including three children— Virendra (15), Devanshi (15), and Ranaba (12)—to the fire at TRP Gaming Zone. He estimated that the incident happened between 4 and 5 pm.
“The kids were playing on the second floor, while their parents were on the ground floor. The fathers of the children rushed to save them, but in the meantime, there was an explosion and the building came down. The women survived,” Rana says.
He claimed that his relative, Divya, called the fire department minutes after the explosion. “The fire had been burning for a while, but no help had reached,” he alleged.
The surviving family members who are currently hospitalised refused to speak and give testimonies.
There are also allegations that staff did not evacuate the facility on time. “The managers of TRP Gaming zone could have saved everyone’s lives that night, but they fled. They didn’t care about the children present there or the staff,” alleged Kanta Ben, elder sister of Asha.
Mehul added that at least two fire incidents have been reported at the gaming zone previously. “Our cousins also worked at TRP Gaming zone, and there had been minor fire incidents at the arena in the past too,” he said. “Nobody paid attention to them.”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)