AFP, NEW DELHIAt least 43 people were killed yesterday in a devastating fire that ripped through a bag factory in the cramped, congested old quarter of the Indian capital, New Delhi, trapping scores of workers who were sleeping inside. Tearful relatives spoke of receiving desperate calls from factory workers from about 5am pleading to be freed from the inferno in the dark, poorly lit premises in the commercial hub of Sadar Bazar. “Most of the casualties happened because of suffocation,” witness Mohammed Khalil told reporters. “I have been to the factory and this tragedy was waiting to happen,” he told reporters. Families of the victims told reporters that they were mostly migrant workers who had come from Bihar, one of India’s most impoverished states.
