A day after a major fire broke out at Soumya Textile Mill in in Surat killing three persons, Surat Rural Police on Friday arrested its director Anupam Agrawal and two employees for causing death by negligence.
A major fire broke out at Soumya Processing Mill at Palsana GIDC area Thursday early morning. Around 200 labourers escaped from the factory, after fire started from the ground floor.
Over 16 fire tenders from Surat, Navsari, Bardoli, Mahuva and other areas reached the spot and doused the flames which spread across the entire mill in five hours.
The fire department officials had found bodies of three persons in a room on the first floor in the office.
The three deceased were identified as Jagdish Suthar (20), his younger brother Praveen Suthar (18) and their cousin brother Kannaram Suthar (27), all residents of Amroli in Surat and natives of Jodhpur in of Rajasthan.
The mill employees told police that the deceased were carpenters working in the factory since last few days for renovating the office and used to sleep at same place during night.
Palsana police had on Thursday evening registered an offence under IPC sections 304(a) ( causing death by negligence) and 114 against the Soumya mill director Anupam Agrawal, a resident of Ghod Dod road, Surat city; shift incharge of the factory Ganesh Diwedi, a resident of Palsana; and supervisor of night shift Manish Sharma, a resident of Sachin.
The complaint in connection with the case was registered by Police Sub-Inspector of Palsana police station Chetankumar Gadhvi.
Gadhvi said, “We have arrested Anupam Agrawal, director of the textile factory, and two of his employees Ganesh and Manish on Friday. The carpenters were doing renovation work at the office in the factory since last few days. When the fire broke out they could not find a way to escape…”