Mayor of North Delhi Preeti Aggarwal, who was earlier caught on camera cautioning the officials from speaking against the firecracker factory where a massive fire broke out on Saturday, has called the video "fake" and demanded an apology from Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for "spreading a lie".
"The worst part amidst this entire painful incident is that a fabricated video has been made viral. I expect Arvind Kejriwal to apologise to me for spreading this lie", Aggarwal told ANI in New Delhi.
"I only made some inquiry about the place from my co-workers and I meant we shouldn't say anything about such unfortunate incident at this time", she added.
She also said the industrial area where the fire took place, "is under DSIDC and land allotment has been done by the Delhi government".
A massive fire broke out at a firecracker unit in outer Delhi's Bawana industrial area, killing 17 people and injuring two on Saturday evening.
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Aggarwal, who had visited the spot to take stock of the situation, was heard telling officials before talking to ANI, "Is factory ki license humare paas hai, isliye kuch nai bol sakte. (The license of this factory is with us, so we should not speak against it)".
The industrial area recorded three fires on Saturday - the first around 4 pm in a carpet manufacturing company in Sector 1, the second in the firecracker unit in Sector 5, and the third in Sector 3 at 7.30 pm.
Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Manoj Tiwari defended Aggarwal, saying she was quoted out of context to tarnish the image of the party.
"Preeti Aggarwal was asking the officials under whom does the factory come. The conversation is not clear, only 'ye factory' is clear. People are trying to make that fake video viral at a sad time just to blame the BJP", he said.
The Delhi BJP chief also hit out at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for re-tweeting the video and sought his apology "for such low-level politics in the time of despair".
Another BJP leader O P Sharma also said that the matter should not be politicised and priority should be to provide relief to the people.
"The matter should not be politicised. People should take a lesson from this for future references", Sharma said.
"The party will see to the statement made by Aggarwal", he said.
