Serum Institute fire incident: Worker recalls incident who jumped from 3rd floor to save his life, but lost his brother

On Thursday, five people lost their lives after a fire broke out at the Manjari plant of Serum Institute of India in Pune. The five people who lost their lives have been identified as Rama Shankar Harijan, Vipin Saroj, both residents of Uttar Pradesh, Sushil Kumar Pandey of Bihar, Mahendra Ingle and Pratik Pashte, both residents of Pune. All five were contractual labourers who were doing electrical works.

The SII has announced a compensation of Rs 25 lakhs each to the families of deceased.

The fire broke out at about 2:45 pm yesterday at an under-construction building where vaccine production was supposed to start after a month. The fire broke out at the 4th and 5th floors of the SEZ3 building. Hours later, another fire broke out again in one of the compartments of the building at SII.

“In the afternoon we saw smoke coming out from the third floor. We jumped from the third floor to save our lives”, said one of the workers Avinashkumar Saroj who survived the incident. “After the fire was doused, it was dark everywhere”, he said while crying.

Apparently, Avinash lost his brother Vipinkumar Saroj in the fire. Vipinkumar too was in the same building working along with Avinashkumar.

“We saw smoke coming out from the third floor and fire broke out. We all started running haywire, I was shouting ‘Bhai chalo jaldi’, as the fire was spreading. Though I could not see the fire, the smoke had covered the entire area. Here, we lost contact”, he recalled.

“I reached the window. We were on the third floor. We had no option but to jump out of the window. Luckily, there was sand so few of us jumped on it. I thought my brother too had jumped on it, but I could not find him anywhere”, he said with tears rolling out on his cheeks.