Kamala Mills fire: Give me one reason to stay back in India, victim's kin tells Narendra Modi

A week after the a massive blaze in Mumbai’s Kamala Mills compound killed 14 people, the family members of one of the victims have criticised fire safety laws and directed their ire at the prime minister. Speaking to CNN-News18, Manish Rajgharia relative of Preeti Rajgharia, demanded that these laws be “put into action.” “Lets get them(laws) into use. Make things safer or us, for us, for our families, for the future generations,” he said.

#EXCLUSIVE - I want to ask the Prime Minister and Chief Minister - give me one reason why I should stay back in this country: Manish Rajgharia, victim's relative #KamalaMillsFire to @maryashakil pic.twitter.com/GH4Tq5i3tq

— News18 (@CNNnews18) January 5, 2018

The 49-year-old victim was a Worli resident, who had returned from Vadodara where her mother-in-law had passed away a fortnight before the incident. The Indian Express quoted her husband Rajesh as saying that had only returned to Mumbai on finishing the last rites of his mother when the tragedy struck his family. Another relative Ayush Rajgharia told CNN-News18 that the laws were of no use. “The laws are like the fire masks that are there in the fire stations and not in the fire trucks. They’re lying there useless. These firemen need to have integrity. I don’t know how you manufacture integrity,” he said. [caption id=“attachment_4281807” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image from the fire at Kamala Mills on 29 December, 2017. Reuters[/caption] Ayush further lashed out at the state and the central government and said: “I want to ask the chief minister, and the prime minister of the country, why shouldn’t I leave? Give me one reason to stay back.” Manish then invoked the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Clean India mission. He said that Modi’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is not only about cleaning the streets, and stressed on the need to “do a lot more cleaning of these corrupt practices.” He further requested Modi to address the issue of corruption. “That’s going to be my request to the honourable prime minister, to take this forward and clean up the system,” he said. According to Free Press Journal, Preeti had gone to 1Above with two of her friends for a dinner after visiting Nehru Science Centre. Economic Times reported that Preeti was with her daughter, Ruchi, when the fire broke out. However, the two were separated during the chaos. While Ruchi was able to make it through the exit, Preeti was left behind and died of suffocation.