Gujarat sees another major tragedy as businesses flout safety norms and officials look away. This time it’s 33 lives lost in a blaze at a gaming zone
In a video circulating on social media, Rajkot resident Pradeepsinh Chauhan can be heard saying that if any of the accused in the TRP Game Zone fire tragedy gets bail before the trial concludes, he will “not spare them”. Chauhan was at the game zone with eight members of his family on May 25 when a spark from a welding work going on inside the facility triggered a fire. The game zone on Rajkot’s Nana Mava Road, operating illegally since 2021, was burnt to the ground—33 people, including nine children, were killed. Five are ‘missing’, including Chauhan’s 15-year-old son and his nephew. “I have nothing left to lose now,” he says, with a mix of sorrow and anger.Read More
Some 36 hours later, hearing a public interest litigation filed on May 27, the Gujarat High Court came down heavily on the state government, the Rajkot Municipal Corporation and the local police for allowing the game zone to operate illegally for two and a half years: “Were you sleeping? We have no faith in the state machinery on corrective measures.” The vacation bench of judges Biren Vaishnav and Devan Desai first heard the matter on May 26 morning, pulling up the government for failure both at the policy level and in the implementation of basic fire norms.
This is the fourth major incident resulting from government negligence in Gujarat in recent times—the Morbi bridge collapse of 2022 being the most prominent. Fuelling public anger is the feeling that justice has not been served—all the older cases are still in court, most of the accused are out on bail and no action has been taken against the officials responsible either (see No Lessons Learnt). This time, four of the seven people who were operating the game zone have been arrested and the de rigueur special investigation team (SIT) has been formed to look into the incident. The public clamour has also led to the suspension of seven mid- and low-level officials for ‘dereliction of duty’.
But it was not enough to satisfy the public or the court, which categorically pointed out how senior officials had not been taken to task. Following the HC’s censure, Rajkot police commissioner Raju Bhargava, DCP Zone 2 Sudhirkumar Desai, ACP Vidhi Chaudhary and Rajkot municipal commissioner Anand Patel were shunted out. Indeed, by that time, the administration had nowhere to hide, for a March 2022 social media post by ‘trp_games_food_entertainment’ had surfaced showing Rajkot collector Arun Mahesh Babu, municipal commissioner Amit Arora and DCP Zone 1 Pravin Meena posing with the game zone’s representatives.
The HC took cognisance of this as well, and asked, “Who are these people? Did they go there to play?” It also pointed out that the RMC chief had attended the inauguration of the illegal gaming zone. “For three years, you did not inquire into it. The activity was merrily going on without permission in front of the corporation,” Justice Vaishnav remarked. He also said that all the municipal commissioners who served between June 2021 (when go-karting operations first started at the zone) and now should be held accountable for the tragedy.
It has also emerged that the gaming zone had never applied for the mandatory fire NOC (no-objection certificate). The Rajkot police had issued it a ‘booking licence’ allowing commercial operations, but the city’s fire and emergency services chief I.V. Kher said the city police never consulted them. The licence was first granted in 2023 and renewed this January. Some 2,000 litres of diesel, 1,500 litres of petrol and many LPG cylinders were stored at the facility. The incident has now raised questions about the procurement and storage norms for the fuels.
The root of the problem is the policy on such ‘recreational facilities’. Dozens of similar gaming zones operate illegally because of the loopholes in the Comprehensive General Development Control Regulations (CGDCR) issued in 2014. To sidestep the clearances, the businesses operate out of temporary structures. Those operating inside malls rely on the mall’s fire safety structure.
Following the incident, all 101 gaming arcades across the state were shut down till inspection and certification for fire safety and compliance with SOPs. But then, the state government’s kneejerk reaction has also come in for flak. Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi says, “After the fire at the illegal tuition centre in Surat in 2019 [where 22 children lost their lives], all coaching classes across the state were shut down for a fortnight. After the Harni boat accident, all boating facilities were shut down, and after the Morbi bridge incident, all pedestrian bridgesâ€æ. But then what? They opened again, with or without inspection.” Lives are lost, and life goes on.
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