On Tuesday, an excited Farhad Wadia, 26, had rushed to his mother’s office at Grant Road to tell her that he had been promoted at work. Within two months of joining Bombay House as a canteen boy, the eldest son of the Parsi family had been appointed as a cashier. A day later, Wadia’s father was at St George Hospital to claim his body.
Printed in Hindustan Times
Wadia was one of the three Tata Group employees who died in the fire that broke out in the building’s basement.
A relative, who was waiting with Wadia’s father at the hospital, said that the family was in shock. “We were all happy for him on Tuesday and today he has left us crying,” the relative said, requesting that his name to be withheld.
All three victims, Wadia, Sushant Pawar and Ishwar Patel, died due to suffocation. Pawar, 32, a Nalasopara resident, had gone to Bombay House to deliver food. He worked with the Ratan Tata Institute at Grant Road and entered the building minutes before the fire broke out. His brother, Hemant, said he had been too busy completing the procedure to claim Pawar’s body to find out what had happened.
Patel, 45, had been working in the Bombay House canteen for more than 10 years. He lived in Naigaon with a friend, Raj Pereira. Another friend, who was at the hospital, said Patel had no relatives and he had come to Mumbai when he was 10.
The post mortem report said none of the victims suffered any injuries. Doctors at St George Hospital said that they all died of asphyxia and that their blood samples have been sent for chemical analysis.
Three people injured in the fire, Chandrakant More, 43, Suresh Patel, 36, and Shrikant Kutte, 26, were admitted to the hospital’s medical intensive care unit. Their condition was stable.
Another employee, Shivaji Desai, 56, was recuperating in the hospital’s medicine ward. Apart from Kutte, who is a security guard with Topsline, the others are Tata Group employees.
Editors Note: I have known Farhad right from the time he was a young Boy Scout in our troop, the Sethna’s 18th West Bombay Scout Group. He was a second generation scout in India’s oldest Scout Group. He leaves behind his parents and younger brother. This is a very sad day for Dinshawji, his dad and the entire family, and the Scout Troop will miss one of its own.