Goregaon building blaze: Fifth body retrieved

Tufail Ahmed's wait for his 23-year-old brother met a rather sorry end. Abdul Rakeeb, a victim of Sunday's Goregaon blaze, had been missing for 42 hours. Fire brigade found his body on Tuesday from the Techniplex 1 building. The death toll of the fire now stands at five.

Rakeeb, a resident of Sakinaka, used to work as a labourer, and was on the seventh floor when the fire broke out in the commercial building. He lost his way due to the thick smoke cover. Predicting his end is near, he made a call to his brother around 3 pm seeking forgiveness for any mistake and even gave him his ATM pin number.

"Despite the fire brigade searching several times, Rakeeb's body could not be found throughout Monday. We got a call from them around 10 am on Tuesday informing us that a body has been found and has been sent to Siddharth Hospital. We rushed to identify the body," said Ahmed. He added that the body had begun decomposing and was emitting foul odor, so they decided against taking it to their native place in Uttar Pradesh, and decided to carry out the final rites in Mumbai.

According to a senior fire official, the deceased's family was certain that he was stuck inside and hence did not stop the search operations. His body was eventually located around 9 am in the closed electric panel due to the stench.

"The victim was found with burn injuries. We believe the victim had gone inside the electricity panel and shut the door to save him from fire. But it was not the correct way to escape a blaze. He ended up inhaling a lot of smoke and also suffered burn injuries," said Rajendra Chaudhary, Deputy Chief Fire Officer.