MUMBAI, Sept. 25 -- What began as a normal workday at a catering services workshop in Akurli, Kandivali East, suddenly took a grim turn when a gas leak set the kitchen ablaze at around 9.05am on Wednesday. Six female and one male cook were badly burned in the fire that consumed the entire workshop. The accident occurred two hours after the employees had begun their shift at Shivani Catering and were chopping vegetables and prepping for the cooking. At around 8.45am, Jitendra Mistry, the landlord, who lives on the first floor, smelled gas in the air. "I called up the workers and told them about the odour but they said there was none," he told HT. "Maybe they were so used to the smell of the gas that they couldn't differentiate it from the leak. By the time I went downstairs to check, within a minute, the gala was on fire." While seven cooks were badly injured, Parmeela Gupta had a miraculous escape, as she turned up late for work. "I do several cooking jobs," she said. "Today, it took me a while to wrap up my work and get here. By the time I arrived, the rescue operations were on." The fire brigade extinguished the fire by 9.30 am and also retrieved six cylinders from the spot. "Gas from the leak accumulated in the shop and suddenly ignited, presumably when the employees turned on the gas to cook. We are still investigating the matter," said a senior official from the Mumbai Fire Brigade. The catering service is run by Shivani Gandhi, 51, who also suffered 70% burns. "She has been running the place for over 12 years," said Jayprakash Mishra, a neighbour. The eatery was popular with people from the surrounding offices, including staff from the ESIC hospital, who would come there for lunch. Mistry, who was the first responder, said the workshop was expanded only 20 days ago. "The kitchen and seating area are all in one gala, but they recently acquired one more," he said. After the accident, the shop was so engulfed with smoke that neighbours could only hear the screams of the workers trapped inside. "We took the extinguisher and tried to put out the blaze but it was not enough, so we took fire extinguishers from nearby galas. Meanwhile the fire brigade reached the spot," said Mistry. Ashok Sharma, 42, along with Mistry, managed to pull three women out of the workshop. "Their sarees were on fire, so we doused it with a blanket," said Sharma. The inferno was so huge that the seat, handle and plastic covering of a scooter parked on the road in front of the shop also melted. The plywood and glassware shops next to the eatery remained untouched. The seven injured are Shivani Gandhi (51), Nity Gupta (31), Janaki Gupta (39), Raksha Joshi (47), Durga Gupta (30), Poonam Gautam (28) and Manaram Kumakat (55). Four of the victims were rushed to the ESIS hospital while three were taken to Bharat Ratna Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar hospital in Kandivali. The patients who suffered major burns were then moved to the National Burns Centre in Airoli for further treatment....