Fire victims of Sherbagh area of Baramulla plead for urgent rehabilitation

Baramulla, Dec 4: The fire victims of SherbaghKanlibagh area of Baramulla have sought immediate rehabilitation from the UT administration so that they can restart their life.

At least four residential houses besides a furniture factory were completely gutted in a massive fire incident on Sunday evening.

The fire started from the furniture factory housing finished wooden items worth crores of rupees and soon spread to nearby residential houses. The fire was doused after several hours. Army, Baramulla police besides local youths played a key role in dousing the high intensity flames.

The furniture factory which is run by three brothers has suffered huge losses estimated to be in crores. While urging the UT administration to help them in restarting their commercial unit, they said they have to start now from scratch as there is nothing left. They said help from the administration is extremely important for them to restart from zero.

“The furniture factory was housing material worth crores of rupees,” said Farooq Ahmad Sheikh, owner of the furniture factory “Their were mainly finished items of walnut wood besides other material which were reduced to ashes besides the factory,” he added.

Scores of people on Monday visited the affected families and expressed their sympathy. Besides local organisations a delegation of Federation Chamber of Industries Kashmir led by Javed Ahmad visited the fire victims and assured the owner of the furniture factory that he will not be left alone in this time of grief.

Javed, urged the Chief Secretary to ensure that fire victims rehabilitation does not consume more time. He said among the rehabilitation it is extremely important that orders should be passed to facilitate his insurance claim in time besides timber required to restart his business.

“The administration can play an important role in ensuring the rehabilitation of the furniture factory where dozens of employees have become unemployed after the devastating fire,” said Javed Ahmad of FCIK.

“The biggest favour would be to help the owner of the factory in clearing his insurance claim in time, besides timber should be provided at the earliest for rehabilitation of his factory,” he added.

Another fire victim and a retired cop, Muhammad Ashraf, said that his entire belongings have been destroyed in the fire incident. He said his son recently got married and whatever jewellery, besides other valuable items were stored, all has perished in the fire. He urged the administration to help him so that he can restart his life.

“I have lost everything from residential house to valuable items,” said Ashraf. “I have no shelter now. The administration needs to come to my rescue so that I can provide two time meals to my family besides a shelter, ” he added.