Telangana factory explosion: Families of victims left shattered as most were sole breadwinners

Pashamylaram (Sangareddy dist): For the relatives and family members of victims from Monday's devastating explosion at Sigachi Industries in Telangana's Sangareddy and those still missing, the sorrow seems endless.

They continue making desperate rounds between hospitals, mortuaries, and the factory site, searching for their loved ones. Each family carries a tragic story, and most victims were the sole breadwinners for their households.

The majority of victims are migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh who had migrated to Telangana seeking better employment opportunities.

Nineteen-year-old Ajay Mondal from West Bengal had joined the factory just one month ago. Coming from the village of Palasi in Murshidabad, where farming brought in only Rs 200-300 per day, the Rs 20,000 monthly salary at Sigachi represented hope for his family of five. As the only son with two younger sisters, Ajay was his family's primary support. His father lacks even the funds to travel to Hyderabad to claim his son's body.

"I'm unable to console Ajay's father ever since I broke the news to him about the explosion. He doesn't have the money to even reach here. He's trying to arrange it. Meanwhile, we're making several rounds here and there to find out what happened to Ajay. He came all the way here in search of a better life for himself and his family back home. It's his ill fate that it's written like this. This was his first job outside his village, and he had joined only a month ago," Ajay's uncle, Tittu, told DH. Ajay had been living with his uncle and aunt in Mylaram.

Forty-five-year-old Prashant Mahapatra from Odisha had been working at the plant for three years. He had just resumed work on June 8 after a six-month break, during which he had returned to his village for health reasons.

Working as a helper at the factory, he was the sole breadwinner for his wife Sonal and their two children, a son and daughter. The family, who lives in Isnapur, last spoke with Prashant around 7:30 AM on Monday morning before he left for the factory. His inconsolable wife and relative Kousthub have been frantically visiting the factory, hospitals, and mortuary, desperately seeking information about Prashant's whereabouts.

"We have been running to different places since yesterday to know about him, but there's no luck. It was around 7:30 AM yesterday, before he left home for the factory, when I last spoke to him. I didn't expect that to be our last conversation. What should I do now? Who is going to look after us?" said Sonal, Prashant's wife, weeping inconsolably as she spoke to DH.

One victim's sister recalled her final conversation with her brother Chote Lal, pleading with him not to go to work that day and to take leave instead.

It was an overtime day, and he had mentioned collecting his salary on July 1 and taking off the next day. The brother-sister duo had planned to visit nearby Isnapur to buy necessities after he took leave. He had recently returned from a month-long break in their village in Bihar, where he had attended his elder brother's wedding. Upon his return, he had brought his sister Sanju Devi to Hyderabad. Now new to the city and devastated by the tragedy, Sanju finds herself lost and uncertain about what to do next.

"We had just returned from our village in Bihar after attending our elder brother's wedding for a month. Before leaving for Hyderabad, he said, 'Chalo didi, tum bhi chalo' (Come sister, you come too). That's how I came here with him. I don't know why, but I asked him to take leave on Monday. He said he would, but only after collecting his salary on July 1. We wanted to go to Isnapur to buy some essentials. If he had listened to me and taken leave, he would have survived," Sanju Devi told DH.

Six-months-pregnant Pooja Kumari from Bihar, holding her one-and-a-half-year-old son, appeared inconsolable as her husband, who had been working in the factory for the past six months, remains untraceable. She last spoke to her husband, who worked in the dryer unit, around 8 AM on Monday, just before he entered the facility. "I don't know how I'm going to raise my children. It's all my ill fate," Pooja Kumari told DH.