Six persons, including four women, were killed and over a dozen sustained burns after a fire broke out in a packaging unit in New Ranjit Nagar here on Saturday evening.
A fire department officer said that all the deceased were all employees of the factory. The victims were working in the factory building which is spread over three floors. It was around 5-50 p.m. that the fire broke out and soon a call was made to the fire department. The police suspect that the fire originated on the first floor of the unit and close to 20 people who were working there got trapped in it.
The nine fire tenders that were pressed into service doused the fire by 8 p.m. and rushed all those caught in it to a nearby hospital where six of them succumbed during treatment and 14 others are being treated.
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The cause of the fire is not known and the police said that some deaths could be due to asphyxiation also. Two persons were reported to have escaped unhurt as they jumped out of the building soon after the fire broke out.