Pune Serum Institute fire has left probe agencies baffled

The cause of the fire at Serum Institute of India SII in Pune has been baffling both the team of officials investigating the incident and the Pune police A week after the January 21 fire that killed five people investigators are waiting for the report from Regional Forensic Science Laboratory RFSL Pune to get some cluesFire officials from three different agencies ndash Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation MIDC as the Manjari plant of SII is located in SEZ area Hadapsar under MIDC Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority PMRDA and Pune Municipal Corporation PMC are probing the incidentAn official probing the fire said ldquoWe have so far not been able to ascertain the reason for the fire which started on the secondfloor mezzanine of the SII plant and are awaiting the RFSL Punersquos report and autopsy findings These will help us get more clues to probe the reason behind the fire The committee formed under PMRDA PMC and MIDC will study the RFSL analysis and submit a report accordinglyrdquoWhen asked to elaborate on the mezzanine floor the official explained ldquoEach floor has a production unit and above that the service area which is called the lsquomezzanine floorrsquoldquoFor instance the ground floor has a production unit and above it is the mezzanine floor service area Similarly the firstfloor production unit has a mezzanine floor above it and so on The fire started in the service area mezzanine floor above the secondfloor production area which is spread approximately over a few thousand square metresrdquoPrashant Ranpise Chief Fire Officer PMC said ldquoThe MIDC fire team is conducting the primary inquiry into the fire we are yet to come to any conclusionrdquoMeanwhile the Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health has also begun a probeVijay Yadav joint director Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health Pune said ldquoWe are probing the cases as per the industrial safety guidelines and three of our senior officers are on the job We are in the process of collecting evidence from the siterdquoWhen asked if the subcontractorrsquos staff who succumbed to the fire had adequate industrial safety training Yadav said ldquoPrimafacie it seems that they did have basic training for the job that was assigned to themrdquoAutopsy findingsA forensic team from the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology attached to B J Medical college Pune conducted the autopsy of the five deceased at Sassoon hospital PuneAccording to highly placed forensic sources the victimsrsquo bodies had turned black due to superficial burns Relativesassociates identified them by their clothes and belongings walletsldquoPrima facie it seems they suffocated to death due to inhalation of toxic carbon monoxide A fire in an enclosed room uses up the oxygen and replaces it with carbon dioxide Following a buildup of carbon dioxide the fuel is prevented from burning fully and starts to release carbon monoxide which leads to unconsciousness and subsequent death The bodies had already started becoming stiff a sign of rigor mortis which indicates that they suffocated to death soon after the fire startedrdquo a source saidldquoWe do not want any mismatch of deceased and their next of kin Hence the chest bone and a molar tooth of each of the deceased has been preserved for DNA analysis This especially since SII has announced a compensation of R25 lakh for the kin of each of the deceasedrdquo said a forensic officialldquoBlood has been preserved for toxicology analysis by RFSL to rule out carbon monoxide poisoning and lungs have been sent for histopathology tests to the Department of Histopathology at Sassoon hospital Analysis of the lungs would help ascertain the presence of soot in the lower respiratory tract and the degree of smoke inhalationrdquo said the expertThe Sassoon forensic team said the preliminary cause of death was lsquoshock due to burns with suffocationrsquo in all five cases The final cause of death will be issued later on the basis of the test reportsSamples collected from siteA team of forensic scientists from the chemistry and biology division of RFSL collected debris including ashes from the spot at SII Samples of polymeric materials from the site were also collectedldquoThe materials recovered have been handed over to the police who would submit them to RFSL Our role is to ascertain the circumstantial reason for the fire for which we will examine the samples to rule out the presence of any inflammable materials or petroleum hydrocarbon viz petrol kerosene diesel etc to rule out fire arsonrdquo said highly placed sources2ndMezzanine part of this floor is where the fire occurred