None of the 28 families who had lost 59 members in all \u2014 23 below the age of 15 \u2014 in the Uphaar fire on June 13, 1997 were willing to accept the tragedy as something that was \u201cdestined\u201d. Vikas\u2019s body was found in the burns ward but there was not a mark on it. Neelam had found her daughter Unnati lying on a stretcher at Delhi\u2019s premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences. She looked like she was asleep, but for a torn earlobe. Someone had moved stretcher to stretcher, yanking jewellery off the dead. Victims of mass tragedies have seldom got justice in India. Harinder Baweja tells the inspirational story of the families of the Uphaar fire who overcame grief to wage and win a dogged battle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":163855,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56],"tags":[7037],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFifty-nine young lives were snuffed out on June 13, 1997, while they watched a Hindi film in Uphaar, a theatre owned by the Ansals, real estate magnates, who never once uttered the word remorse. The callousness, the heartlessness displayed by the theatre management, in fact, spurred the victims to galvanise themselves into battle. How could the manager have walked away with the cash box after the transformer had caught fire? What about the public address system that should have warned hapless cinemagoers that afternoon? It never came on. It could not have. It was not working. What about the usher who had bolted the only exit from the outside and left duty even before his replacement could come in that day? What about the fire extinguisher? Well, in its place lay a broom. What about all those extra seats that brought in extra bucks but at the cost of human lives? Fate had not dealt the Sidhus and the Sawhneys a bad card. This was a man-made tragedy. This was criminal negligence. Distraught families kept scanning the papers and their suspicions kept getting confirmed, even as they went about the difficult task of cremating the dead. The transformer which caught fire \u2014 to deliver a fatal blow this time \u2014 had also sparked and resulted in a minor fire at 7am the same day. Linemen from the Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB) had used sand to douse the fire and the cables had been repaired, or so they said. What the engineers from the DVB\u2019s breakdown unit actually did only emerged later.
\nIf 10 years later, powerful real-estate tycoons Sushil and Gopal Ansal find themselves singled out as the only two amongst the mighty to have been sentenced by a court of law, it is because the ordinary got together to push their own destiny. If the three DVB engineers find themselves convicted for culpable homicide, it is because\u00a0the victims got together and swore justice. Grief and anger can propel in many ways. In this case, it brought together simple, middle and lower income group families to wage a unified battle. A battle that sought to avenge the deaths of the 59 whose future lay ahead of them. Justice has always eluded the common Indian and many a case has fallen by the wayside, but the Uphaar fight has shown how dogged determination can yield results. THE BATTLE, which has today become an inspirational example, started as any ordinary story usually does. The spark came from Neelam Krishnamoorthy, who found herself surrounded by eager, inquisitive members of her and Shekhar\u2019s extended family advising her to have another child. This was on the thirteenth day after she had immersed the ashes of 13-year-old Ujjwal and 17-yearold Unnati.
\nShe had already charted her course. The mother made a promise to her children to punish those responsible for their untimely death. Shekhar by her side, the happy housewife who sometimes lent a helping hand to her husband\u2019s flourishing garment export business, Neelam asked her new family of friends in the media for a lawyers name and number. On June 27, to be precise, she called wellknown lawyer KTS Tulsi who offered to come to her house to meet her. But for someone who had already decided to make resolve a companion, she replied, \u201cNo sir, if I have to fight this battle, I have to get out of the house.\u201d So, the two went to meet Tulsi, who agreed but with two pre-conditions: one, that he would not take a penny and two, he would lead their battle only if they could form an association. His advice \u2014 you cannot take on a rich and powerful lobby like the Ansals as individuals. For the next three days, the grieving couple scoured the newspapers for obituary columns; called up each family, who readily agreed, and on June 30, 1997 \u2014 17 days after death had visited each of those 28 homes \u2014 the families had an umbrella. It was called AVUT \u2014 Association for the Victims of the Uphaar Tragedy.
\nTulsi gave them another important advice \u2014 the Ansals would flex their financial muscle, so no one other than the next of kin would be allowed in as members. Bound by deep sorrow and the determination to see the guilty punished, the one thing that marked AVUT\u2019s 10-yea long battle (it has taken this long to win the case in the lower court) was the fact they stuck together as one big family.
\nNOT THAT<\/strong> the \u201cenemy\u201d did not try. There were crude attempts to lure victims but they didn\u2019t work. And when the colour of money failed to break the resolve that had been born of grief, they tried intimidation. That did not work either, and as Tulsi put it, \u201cThis frustrated the Ansals because they succeeded neither with the subtle nor the blatant.\u201d
\nPerhaps the reason why the Uphaar case stands out as an example in comparison to other recent cases like the Jessica Lall murder and the BMW hit-and-run, in which witnesses succumbed to money and muscle power. Parts of the protracted 10-year-long battle, in fact, resembles a keen game of chess, each side trying to outwit the other. When the families did not succumb, the Ansals got caught out for what even the judge termed serious \u2014 the tampering with court records. Crucial documents that clearly established the Ansals\u2019 links to Uphaar \u2014 they had pleaded that they had nothing to do with the day-to-day running of the theatre after 1988 \u2014 were either missing or had been distorted.
\nIf several adjournments made the victims\u2019 families despair, this development lifted their spirits. It was easy to sink into the lows. Tears were always on stand-by. Exasperation forever ready to tear at the mask which the families wore for the world outside. Dang often returned to his room, where his wife\u2019s photograph is still decorated with five fresh roses every morning \u2014 red roses, because she liked them. Neelam was forever ready to spend time in her children\u2019s room where the bedspread lies untouched because that\u2019s what they slept on before they left. Revisiting the world they once shared helped. Dang says he could fight because he faced up to the past, unlike his brother who did not even want to be reminded. Neelam did it by not giving up on being a mother only because her children were dead.
\nDon\u2019t be fooled by the tears. It didn\u2019t dent AVUT\u2019s determination to see their mission to a logical conclusion. The tears helped \u2014 it gave them that ultimate strength that is born from the depths of emotional despair.
\nJustice. That\u2019s what the families reminded themselves and each other of. Importantly, as Tulsi said, \u201cWhen we formed the Association, we knew we couldn\u2019t bring the children back. It was not a condolence body. It was formed to improve the observance of safety norms.\u201d The struggle was not just about getting the Ansals and errant government departments to pay up. That battle was won some years ago, but it wasn\u2019t just money they were fighting for. Ask Tulsi and he will tell you this. \u201cYes, there were tough moments. The Association was quibbling and getting torn, but they never lost sight of the ultimate goal. Coughing up Rs 10 crore as compensation for a businessman worth Rs 500 crore means nothing. A rich man is scared of nothing other than the prospect of going to jail.\u201d
\nAVUT dug out the impossible. They took on different roles. Sometimes, they worked like lawyers \u2014 referring to the IPC and the CrPC to look for interpretations.At other times, they doubled as sleuths and went about the task of finding documents from the Registrar of Companies. At times, they went undercover to cull information from the vast Ansal empire itself. They knew they had touched a high when they laid their hands on a critical document \u2014 an affidavit bearing Sushil Ansal\u2019s signature. The affidavit had been sent to the DCP Licensing in 1992. This nailed the lie that the Ansals had relinquished charge as directors of Uphaar in 1988.
\nAVUT ALSO<\/strong> realised the importance of keeping the issue alive. This realisation came early on in the battle and in the very first year of its inception, the members decided to have a seminar or a discussion on the thirteenth of every month. So, even as they fought the protracted battle in court, the reminder that 59 innocents had died was always there in the dailies and on television channels. There may be some sense of disappointment with the trial court\u2019s judgement, angst that the Ansals have only been found guilty of causing a rash and negligent act and not of culpable homicide, but ask the families again and they will tell you that it is a victory. That the word \u201cconvict\u201d will be the Ansals\u2019 prefix. That for the first time, the ordinary have been able to make the mighty feel the heat.
\nAsk Dang and he will say, \u201cOur strength is that we stayed together as a family.\u2019\u2019 Ask Rita Sawhney and she says she has got some solace at last. Ask Tulsi, and he says, \u201cI am satisfied because we have achieved what we set out to do. The case has contributed to the development of jurisprudence. The powerful know now that they too can be booked and government departments will think twice before issuing false safety certificates. Neelam and Shekhar\u2019s mission made the difference between success and defeat.\u201d
\nAsk Neelam and Shekhar, who gave up their business, to plunge into battle, and after years, they will smile and say, \u201cThe fight is not over yet, but we can now go home and face the children.\u201d The road doesn\u2019t end here for AVUT. It\u2019s ultimate aim is to transform itself into an Association for the Victims of Mass Tragedy.
\n[box]
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/12\/KRISHNAMOORTHYS.jpg\")
<\/a>The Krishnamoorthys
\n<\/strong>Garment exporters<\/i>
\nLed the campaign after losing their two children. Went through 45,000 pages of documents and 1,200 hearings. Want a wing of the Trauma Centre, for which the government has paid Rs 55 crore, to be dedicated to the victims
\n<\/a>Harish Dang
\n<\/strong>Businessman<\/i>
\nLost five members including his wife, son, two nieces and a nephew. Unlike his brother, who doesn\u2019t want to be reminded of the tragedy, Dang says he is a fighter and wants to see safety awareness grow
\n<\/a>ML Sehgal
\n<\/strong>Project officer, IIT Delhi<\/i>
\nGave his son Rs 250 because \u2018it was my birthday\u2019. Lost his son that day \u2013 June 13 \u2014 and joined the battle for justice. Now has another date to celebrate \u2014 November 22. The day a powerful lobby like the Ansals were convicted
\n[\/box]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"