Massive fire in Grant Road kills one, causes losses worth crores

Mumbai: More than thirty-six hours after a fire, declared level four (serious emergency), gutted around 60 shops at Old Timber Market (Lakda bazar) in Grant Road at 2am on Friday, the havoc at the site was far from over. According to senior officials, the charred body of a man was recovered in the morning, who was later identified as Ghanshyam Prajapati, 50, with no other injuries reported in the incident. While the blaze was brought under control by 11:30am, and finally extinguished by 8:03pm, cooling operations were still on.
The cause of the blaze is still under investigation. Chief fire officer, Ravindra Ambulgekar, said, “Since the fire was so massive, we’re trying to zero in on the start point. It will take another day to clear out the burnt leftovers.” The previous level four fire in Mumbai was exactly a year ago; on January 26, 2023 in a high-rise named RA Residencies in Dadar East.
Fire officers from all over the city and workers sent by the BMC reached the hills of charred rubble at the site of around 10,000 square feet, with massive pieces of wood and steel patra (sheets) which formed several galas. Welding the pieces, the workers were cutting the large pieces to make them a manageable size to clear them off. Fire officials sprayed water and smoke billowed, with some active sparks causing large bouts every so often. It would take at least another day to empty, said a fire officer on site.
As the name of the market suggests, a majority of the shops worked with wood; either storing and selling them per requirements, making doors, windows and other items out of them, collecting scrap wood, repairing and reselling them. But with time, the contents of the shops had changed too. Some dealt in steel, and others with marble.
As is trademark with godowns and workshops like these, the same people who worked there, lived and slept there too. All managed to escape, except Prajapati. His friend from the same village in Uttar Pradesh, Narendra Dev, shared a little about him. “He worked in a cloth shop in Nagpada, but he came here at night to sleep, as the shop owner where he worked knew the person who owned the gala. He was at the very back of the market,” he said. Asleep alone, with a bad leg, he didn’t hear the commotion and wasn’t awoken by others. When the smoke finally got to him, he could only limp to the narrow toilet stalls – where his charred body was found.
His body was sent to JJ Hospital, and was then collected by his brother for last rites. Dev and his fellow coworkers, 15 of them, working in an iron shop, had worked till 12 midnight – as opposed to the usual 8pm – as they were preparing not to work for the holiday on January 26. They had just finished their food and were almost sleeping when the fire started, at around 2am. “We heard the noise and commotion, so we ran out. All our stuff had burnt,” he said. Other workers said they were alerted by the smoke filling fast, and woke others up to leave.
They sat on the steps of the shops on the outskirts of the market enclosure, worried. “We’ve not been told what to do. No one has even offered us water, we have nowhere to go and we’ve not slept,” said another with them, Krishnamurari Soni.
Shop owners said they too were in limbo and were still in the process of deciding what to do. Some said the workers were sleeping in the other galas which hadn’t been affected, as they were all friendly.
There were 60 shops of the total 80 in the market which were scorched, said Muslim Boxwala, vice president of the Mohammedi Old Timber Market No 1 Association. He estimates the losses of each to range from ₹1 to 2 crore, bringing the total quantum of loss from ₹60 to 120 crore, and likely more.
“Consider my shop. I made wooden boxes, and 30-40 of them were sitting. There was raw pine wood and plywood which I used to make the boxes and then there were the machines,” he said. “The panchnama is yet to be done, in which we’ll have to account for everything and we’ll know exactly how much we’ve lost.”
Another shop owner, Rishit Prajapati, gave an estimate of around ₹200 crore of losses. His father, a member of the shopkeepers association, said 59 galas had been burnt.
The owners did not expect or hope for any compensation. “All we ask is that we be allowed to rebuild our shops back up with the least resistance and trouble,” said Boxwala.
The land on which the market is, which Boxwala estimates is 150 years old, is owned by a Parsi Trust, the Seth Merwanjee Framjee Pandey Charitable Fund. Both Boxwala and Prajapati said the trust had appointed a builder for the redevelopment of the area, and they were in talks with them.
As for the residents in close vicinity, the Platinum mall plus high rise building bordering the back of the market had been evacuated soon after the fire started, and were not yet let back. A guard, Rupesh Patil, said some water pipes were damaged and the electricity switched off, and they did not know when the residents would be allowed back in. A narrow lane behind the market had also been evacuated but its residents, in chawl like houses, were back.
“We’re giving the workers and fire officers food,” said Abdul Samad Shaikh, who runs the social work organisation Uni Blend Foundation. “The Bilal mosque and the local mosque here, as well as the building helped in fire fighting by giving water from their tanks. The building’s fire fighting system was also used.”
Ashwini Joshi, the additional municipal commissioner (city), said they cannot confirm yet if the godowns and workshops will be allowed to build themselves back again. Sharad Ughade, the assistant commissioner of the D Ward, did not respond to questions.