FICO urges Punjab government to withdraw Section 304 of IPC against Inderjeet Singh Gola

Ludhiana, December 3, 2017: In a meeting of Federation of Industrial & Commercial Organization (FICO), held under the chairmanship of S.Gurmeet Singh Kular, President along with Sh.Rajeev Jain Secretary, S.Sohan Singh Goga, S.Swarn Singh Moholi Ex-councilor and others, opposed the action against Inderjit Singh Gola for fire outcome resulting to collapse of the building. The Punjab police had arrested the owner of a multi-storey plastic manufacturing factory which caught fire and collapsed, killing 13 people including six firemen. Inderjit Singh Gola, the factory owner has been arrested by Punjab police. This was one of Ludhiana’s biggest industrial disasters that had claimed the lives of 13 people.
The meeting observed that “the lack of modern day fire fighting equipments with the Fire Brigade and Municipal Corporation of Ludhiana, also holds the equal responsibility, they were not able to control the fire which eventually resulted into collapse of the building. Had the firefighting equipments were up to date, the fire could have been controlled at that particular floor from where it got initiated”.

FICO urged the state government to withdraw Section 304 of the IPC against S.Inderjeet Singh Gola as it could happen with any industrialist. The Punjab government should focus with latest fire fighting equipments to tackle the situation, said KK Seth, Chairman, FICO.
“This is completely wrong to blame the factory owner who has already faced huge losses for the fire outburst”, said Kular adding that FICO would take the issue with Deputy Commissioner Ludhiana, Police Commissioner Ludhiana and Punjab Chief Minister, as there was panic like situation amongst the industrialists that for such an unfortunate accident in factory premises, the owner of the factory was being held responsible.
Further, Kular said there was a need to improve the basic infrastructure of Municipal Corporation Ludhiana & Fire Brigade Department, they needed to be equipped with the modern day latest fire fighting technology so that these kind of accidents might not recur again.

S.Harpal Singh Bhamber Head Bicycle Division, S.Gurwinder Singh Sachdeva, Head Trade Division, S.Sohan Singh Goga, S.Swaran Singh Moholi Ex-Councillor, S.Hardeep Singh Plaha and S.Inderjit Singh Birdi were among those present.