Ghaziabad: Five persons were charred to death in a fire that broke out at a cracker godown on Friday afternoon in Farrukh Nagar village in Sahibabad here.
Ten fire tenders were pressed into service to douse the flames.
The owner of the godown Pappu (55) and four workers Ashfaq (40), Rafeek (60), Sageer (40) and Qutubuddin (50) lost their lives in the fire that broke out at around 1 pm, said Station House Officer (SHO) Sudhir Tyagi.
Initial investigations have shown that all of them were inside the godown when the fire broke out probably due to a simmering piece of 'beedi' having being thrown by one of the workers.
The police are also probing whether crackers were stored in the godown after getting due permissions.
No FIR has been registered yet as the godown owner too had died in the incident, police said.
The bodies have been sent for post-mortem, SHO Tyagi said.
Deputy Inspector General (Meerut Zone) K S Emmanuel reached the spot to take stock of the situation.
