Whitefield: giant racks crashed without base support

The accident at the Whitefield warehouse on Thursday happened due to the smaller bolts fixed to the racks and lack of support at the base, fire and emergency officials said.

At 11.30 am on Friday, a team of fire experts and labour officials arrived at the Holisol Logistic Pvt Ltd at Seegehalli, where the accident happened, and video-recorded the spot.

They later prepared a preliminary report that said the towering 30-ft iron racks loaded with consumer goods in cardboard boxes and crates crashed over the workers without proper support at the base. Three died in the accident and five sustained injuries.

The deceased are Farooq (21), who lived in Koralur near Kadugodi; and Subhash (25) and Gyan Darshan (26), both natives of Odisha. The workers were at the warehouse when the racks toppled.

The Kadugodi police produced business head Ajay Kanwar and site in-charge Amanullah before the magistrate and remanded them to judicial custody.

Whitefield DCP Abdul Ahad said three directors of Holisol Logistics, headquartered in New Delhi, are made accused in the case and a police team has been dispatched to the national capital to arrest them.

The police seized the warehouse after the rescue operations ended at 9.30 pm on Thursday. Power supply has been disconnected in the surrounding areas.

The police also beefed up security around the warehouse to prevent relatives of the deceased from indulging in stone-pelting or arson.

Deputy Labour Commissioner-1 C H Balakrishna said action would be taken against the company. He said the focus, for now, would be on getting the compensation for the deceased.

Gopal Bora, a relative of Subhash and Darshan, said the duo wanted to become athletes as they were passionate about joining the police or defence services. They came to the city to earn some money until they got a break in the services, said Bora, who sat before the seized warehouse.

The duo had plans to return to their native in July and write the exams. The bodies of Darshan and Subhash were taken to Odisha after the post-mortem, while Farooq's last rites were performed in the city.