Former minister and ex-Leader of Opposition in the Telangana Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir, along with TPCC Working President & MP A Revanth Reddy, met the family members of Uzma Fatima, the Assistant Engineer of TSGENCO who lost her life in the
fire mishap at the Srisailam power plant on August 21.
Shabbir Ali and Revanth Reddy met Fatima's father Mohammed Zubair at his residence in Azampura, Malakpet, in the Old City on Sunday, and expressed their deep condolences.
Speaking to media persons, Shabbir Ali said that the fire mishap occurred due to the carelessness and mismanagement of the state government. The staff, including Uzma Fatima, tried to extinguish the fire to save public property worth hundreds of crores despite having the opportunity to escape from the scene of the incident, as was evident from the videos going viral on the social media, he said. Fatima herself saved four lives before falling victim to the fire, he added.
The state government should therefore treat all nine victims as martyrs and pay them a compensation of Rs 1 crore each, he demanded. Further, their families should be given a plot of at least 500 sq yards each, besides a suitable government job to one member, he said.
He also said that the victims who lost their lives could not be differentiated by their rank or post in payment of compensation, and that all families lost their loved ones and must be paid Rs 1 crore each.
The Congress leaders then visited L B Nagar to meet the family of Deputy Engineer Bathini Srinivas Goud who also lost his life in the mishap.
Revanth Reddy reiterated the demand for a CBI enquiry into the incident. He alleged that the incident occurred due to the utter negligence of the state government. He said that technicians had already warned the government about some glitches at the unit and cautioned that they could lead to an accident, but the authorities simply ignored those issues by not conducting any review.
He blamed Telangana Power Minister Jagadish Reddy and TSGENCO Chairman and Managing Director D Prabhakar Rao for the incident, and announced that he would raise the issue in Parliament and seek a CBI enquiry.
He said that criminal cases should be booked against all those responsible for the incident.
Reddy also condemned Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao not visiting the site of the incident or the hospital to meet the injured employees. He said that neither the Chief Minister nor the Power Minister nor the TSGENCO CMD had met the families of any of the victims. He claimed that this kind of behaviour would demoralise all the employees in the state.
He added that the CID enquiry ordered by the state government was just an eyewash and would not produce any results.