Numaish fire is gross human error

Numaish Masnuaat-e-Mulki or simply Numaish, an annual exhibition of Hyderabad is not just a fair but a celebration for all the Hyderabadis. As visitors and customers to Numaish from almost 20 years, it has been a festival to me, my family and my friends. But, the shocking news that the exhibition was burning up with fire and the visuals on the TV showing blazing fire everywhere was extremely sorrowful. For a few minutes, even though we were at home, it was very horrifying to imagine the situation of the visitors present there and more importantly the desolation of the stall owners who come from various parts of the country for their year- long livelihood.

The management and the authorities did act soon, but almost 300 stalls getting burnt completely into ash is absolutely unacceptable. The reason given was that though precautions were in place the materials of the stall roofs were delicate enough to catch fire. But that’s the whole point. Why did the management allow such unsafe cloth materials to be used as roofs of the stalls and didn’t regulate them?. This is not just a matter of administration, but a matter of safety, lives and livelihoods of human beings. The government has to step in and rescue the victimised stall owners and set up much more stringent standards and precautions so that such disasters don’t repeat.

- Ramala Kinnera, Hyderabad