4 tents with luggage of NRI tourists gutted by fire at Dhordo tent city

Gandhinagar: Four tents along with the luggage of tourists were gutted by fire at Dhordo based tent city today. The tent city located next to Great Rann of Kutch is set up every winter for tourism festival called ‘Rann Utsav’. Three of four tents that gutted by fire were allocated to NRIs (Non Resident Indians) while one tent was vacant. Cloths and luggage of tourists in three tents are destroyed in fire. A video of family arguing and expressing his problems is viral.

Fire broke out in D cluster Deluxe category tent number 55, 56, 57 and 58 at 8.37 am today. While tent 55 to 57 were occupied with tourists, tent 58 was vacant. At the time of fire, 11 tourists from these three tends were in dining hall for breakfast. When they returned after breakfast, they found their luggage, bags, furniture and bed of tents, everything was destroyed by fire. Out of 11 tourists were NRIs from America – Kalpesh Patel, his wife and two children. Due to timely intervention by fire brigade, fire could not spread further. It is believed that short circuit might have caused fire. According to Assistant collector Manish Gurwani and DySP BM Desai who rushed to the place, CCTV footage was checked after the incident. Fire tender doused the fire within 10 minutes. Prima facie it was felt that passports of NRI family were destroyed in fire, but later it was revealed that passports were safe. It is learnt that Lalluji and Sons – the operator of Rann Utsav tourist festival have assured Rs. 2 lakh compensation to victim tourists for their return journey and destroyed cloths and other luggage.

DeshGujarat