“Mama.” This was the first word spoken by three-year-old Naina, one of the survivors of the devastating blast at an unlicensed firecracker warehouse in Deesa.
We might not have been with her but it’s impossible not to feel her voice, filled with innocence and fear.
With a bandage around her head, she asked for her mother, Daliben, one of the casualties in the blast.
Naina’s father, Rakesh Nayak, and older sister Kiran, both lost their lives as well.
No less is the assault on the senses when we are told of the tragedy that befell Neha and Nidhi, two teenage sisters from Madhya Pradesh. They arrived at the hospital with their uncle, Lalit Verma, seeking their mother, Laxmi, who had been missing since the blast. Their father had passed away a few years ago, leaving them searching for answers amid the chaos.
The sisters have given their blood samples for DNA identification. Neha told a national newspaper that her mother and Pankaj, a contractor, worked in the warehouse. Another contractor Harish Sindhi informed them about the blast but since then he has been inaccessible.
Naina, who had accompanied her parents to the warehouse on March 29-30, was cared for by her distant relatives, Bittu Nayak and Rajesh Nayak.
Rajesh told the daily that they had come to the Deesa warehouse on March 29-30 to make firecrackers. The contractors Pankaj and Laxmiben brought them. Both are missing. They barely started work when the blast happened.
Sadly, Vishnu, Rajesh’s younger brother, perished in the explosion. Naina was found sobbing outside the warehouse.
Meanwhile, Chandrasingh Nayak, a resident of Sandalpur village in Madhya Pradesh’s Dewas district, has been desperately searching for six of his relatives, including his daughter Sunita and son-in-law Lakhan. He said that his daughter and her husband had arrived in Deesa just a few days before the explosion, along with other relatives, hoping to earn better wages to pay off their debts. He added that his daughter had called him shortly before arriving to inform him of their move to Deesa.
The incident has drawn attention from local and state authorities. MP Minister Nagar Singh Chouhan, who visited the hospital along with Gujarat’s Labour and Employment Minister Balvantsinh Rajput and local BJP MLAs, expressed his condolences to the victims and their families. Chouhan assured the families that the government would stand by them and take strict action against those responsible for the tragedy.
The Banaskantha district police have filed an FIR against the warehouse owners, Khubchand Renumal Mohnani and his son Deepak, on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The investigation is ongoing as authorities seek to determine the cause of the explosion and hold those accountable for the illegal operation of the firecracker warehouse.
