Pune: Police Commissioner Amitabh Gupta has said that parallel investigation will be conducted by the Crime Branch sleuths into the massive fire incident reported at the Serum Institute of India premises on Thursday (January 21) afternoon.

The exact reason behind the fire is yet to be ascertained. Gupta said, “The Hadapsar police station has the jurisdiction to investigate this matter. Crime Branch officials will conduct a parallel investigation into this case.”

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will visit the Serum Institute of India (SII) on Friday . CM Thackeray will take stock of the situation and inspect the site tomorrow at noon. Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar also reviewed the situation after four men and a woman were found dead at the fifth floor of a unit of the Serum Institute.

The deceased have been identified as Rama Shankar Harijan, Bipin Saroj, both residents of Uttar Pradesh; Sushil Kumar Pandey, resident of Bihar, Mahendra Ingle, Pratik Pashte, both residents of Pune. All are contractual labourers and were doing electrical works at the site.

The COVISHILED vaccine production unit of Serum Institute of India at Manjari near Hadapsar is completely safe and far from the site where a massive fire broke out on Thursday afternoon at around 2pm. The fire has been brought under control and doused late evening.

The Fire Brigade department had received a call about a major fire incident at the new unit of Serum Institute of India (SII) at Manjari area near Hadapsar on Thursday afternoon. Initially four and later six more fire tenders were dispatched to bring the fire under control and douse it.

Serum Institute of India is producing the COVISHIELD vaccine for COVID19 disease. The company is producing around 10 million doses of COVISHIELD per month for India as well as other countries in the world. Serum Institute is the largest vaccine producer company in the world with production of as many as 70 per cent of total vaccines produced in the world.