Sunday was meant for cricket: Friend of injured workers

Eighteen-year-old Mohammad Wasim was looking forward to the game of cricket he and his friends indulged in every Sunday in a park in the Anaj Mandi area here. But the elation soon turned into horror and despair when he came to know that a massive fire had erupted in the building in which his friends worked and lived.

Wasim said three of his friends hailing from Bihar -- Babloo (18), Mustafa (22) and Sonu (14) -- were injured in the blaze and admitted to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital. "We would play cricket every Sunday as it's a day off for everybody, in a nearby ground in the area," he said.

Sonu had specifically come from Burari on Saturday night to play cricket the next morning. His brother Babu worked and lived in the factory, said Wasim, who works in a beauty products store in Sadar Bazar. "Nobody took my calls in the morning. I got to know about the incident when I reached the Anaj Mandi area," he said.

He said his friends were engaged in printing work on the third floor of the building that caught fire. "I just know they belong to Bihar. I don't have much details. We bonded over cricket," he said.

At least 43 people were killed when a massive fire ripped through a four-storey building housing illegal manufacturing units in north Delhi's congested Anaj Mandi area on Sunday morning, in the second deadliest blaze in the national capital. PTI GVS RDM RDM

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