New Delhi: After the Delhi centre of NGO Goonj was gutted in fire on the day of Diwali, its founder Anshu Gupta today alleged that the incident was caused by a firecracker and started an online campaign against the same.
“Here I was asking you to spread the message against crackers and there a cracker did this to Goonj’s center in Delhi…Tonnes of material, where we all had put in our days and nights turned into ash! Nothing much to say…Anger on this insane, menace, vulgarity called crackers,” the Magsaysay awardee wrote in a Facebook post.
“Will share more as we fight back but certainly one of the saddest moments for the team and lakhs of people who are a part of Goonj’s larger family…Particularly sad as blankets to woolens, clothes to whatever is needed much more, in the days to come,” the social entrepreneur said.
“Response on a few things from our Delhi office might be slow for the next couple of days as the team is fighting back with this huge loss of material, money and space,” he added.
However, the police and the fire department could not yet confirm the cause of fire.
On Wednesday, a fire broke out around 7 PM in a facility of the Goonj NGO at southeast Delhi’s Madanpur Khadar area. As many as 10 fire tenders were rushed to the spot and it took several hours for the firefighters to douse the flames, fire officials said.