A skipped shift, a dinner at home: Chance decisions that saved some workers from Mangolpuri factory fire

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Published - October 31, 2026 06:33 pm IST - NEW DELHI

Locals near the factory in Mangolpuri area, as Four people died, and two others were injured after a massive fire broke out at a shoe factory in Phase 1 of the Mangolpuri Industrial Area in Delhi at around 9:30 p.m. on Friday. After receiving the information, police personnel and fire tender teams immediately reached the location and initiated rescue operations., New Delhi on Saturday, October 31, 2026. | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma

Waiting for updates about his fellow workers near the mortuary at Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Mangolpuri on Saturday (October 31, 2026), Vijay was still coming to terms with how narrowly he had escaped the fire at the shoe factory where he had worked for nearly 20 years.

On Friday (October 30, 2026) night, Vijay was scheduled to work a double shift. However, after returning home for dinner, he decided against going back to the factory. The decision, which seemed inconsequential at the time, may have saved his life.

“I had a double shift. I came back home to have dinner, but then I did not feel like going back, so I skipped the night shift that day and slept. Later, I found out that four people had died. Now I wonder what would have happened had I gone,” Vijay told The Hindu.

He said such an incident had never occurred at the factory in the nearly two decades he had worked there. Workers usually worked from 9 a.m. until 7 or 8 p.m., but were sometimes asked to put in additional hours when demand was high.

“Sometimes we were asked to do double duty when there was demand. Now, because of the festive season, we were doing double shifts,” he said.

Vijay was among several workers who narrowly escaped the fire because of decisions made around dinner time. While some stepped out to eat, others stayed back at the factory.

For Harihar Chaurasiya, known as Pinto among his relatives and friends, staying back to eat dinner proved fatal. His 12-year-old son had brought him food from home minutes before the accident.

His closest friend and co-worker, Putan Chaurasiya, however, had went to eat at home and escaped the fire.

“Putan came home, around 500 metres away, to eat dinner while Harihar stayed back as his elder son got food for him from home. When Putan went back, the factory was already engulfed in fire,” said Sudheer Chaurasiya, a relative.

Harihar’s aunt, Pushpa, said she cannot stop thinking about how a small change in his plans could have saved him. “I wish he had come home to eat that day or had just stepped out with the other workers. He would have been alive,” she said.

After receiving his dinner, Harihar had asked his son to return home safely and hurry before it got too late. Those were the last words the 12-year-old remembers his father saying to him.

A similar decision proved fatal for 25-year-old Ashok, who had ordered dinner from a nearby hotel and decided to eat inside the factory while a group of co-workers went out to get their meal.

“He had finished dinner early. He wanted to speak to his wife and two daughters. Just as he was on call with them, he heard noises and saw the smoke, and rushed down,” his uncle Umesh Prasad said.

He disconnected the call saying there was a fire, and the call never connected again.

Published - October 31, 2026 06:33 pm IST

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