Armed paramilitary troops patrolled the northern city on Tuesday as residents staged angry protests accusing authorities of negligence after some 100 people perished in a trade fair fire.
MEERUT: Armed paramilitary troops patrolled the northern city on Tuesday as residents staged angry protests accusing authorities of negligence after some 100 people perished in a trade fair fire.
Hundreds of people gathered outside the fairgrounds and scuffled with police, who cordoned off the area where the blaze tore through crowded tents on Monday night.
An official said an enquiry had been ordered.
"There could be negligence on the part of administration and event managers that led to such a catastrophe," said RM Srivastava, secretary in the home department in Lucknow.
Meerut police chief Rajiv Sabarwal said on Monday night that more than 100 people died. He had no injury toll but a local intelligence chief said 87 people were hurt.
A final death toll is expected later on Tuesday.
Legislator Laxmikant Vajpayee blamed the fire on state negligence and said the show's organisers had failed to get a no objection certificate from the fire department before setting up the tents.
"The enclosures were a fire trap. There was only exit and one entry covered with nylon and there was no crowd control," Vajpayee said.
"The trade fair was being conducted illegally and the city administration remained a mute spectator. Charges of murder should be registered against the administration."
As the town tried to come to the terms with the tragedy, grieving relatives massed outside hospitals to demand that the charred bodies of their relatives be handed over.
The anguished cries of relatives echoed down crowded hospital corridors as nurses hurried with medicines to treat patients who suffered burn injuries over as much as 70 percent of their bodies.
"I saw flames shoot up into the sky," said Alijan Alvi, a paramedic who was at the fair but escaped from the blaze unharmed.
"It was all over in seconds, except for the shrieks and shouts."
The flames spread rapidly through the wooden-floored tents covered with synthetic material, witnesses said, and foresnic experts were working in the remains to determine what started the blaze.
"All indications point to a short circuit in one of the haphazard wiring systems," supplying electricity to the tents," said police inspector Alka Sirivastava.
The shell of the enclosure was littered Tuesday with high-end products such as music systems, washing machines, computers -- and charred uniforms of the models and salesgirls managing the stalls.
Shoppers, who had flocked to the air-conditioned tents to escape the great heat outside, became trapped inside once the fire started, witnesses said.
The tubular steel-framed tents each had capacity for more than 2,000 people and were about 100 metres long. A single entry-exit corridor with stalls on either side made it almost impossible for people to get out.
Seven local hospitals were overwhelmed with the dead and injured. Badly burned survivors were being transferred to New Delhi some 80 kilometres to the south, doctors said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed shock at the tragedy and sent condolences to relatives of the dead, his office said.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday visited local hospitals to meet the injured.
Gandhi came along with Union Minister of State for Home Sri Prakash Jaiswal and inquired about the health of the injured. They met relatives of the affected people.
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