Investigation into Walmart employee’s oven death, questions raised

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (FOX Carolina) – After the body of a Walmart employee was found in an industrial oven, people online are raising questions about how the tragic death could have happened.

On October 19, 19-year-old Gursimran Kaur was found dead in bakery oven at the Walmart store in Canada where she worked.

Kaur and her mother worked together in a shop on Mumford Road. A GoFundMe Organized by the Sea Sikh Society for the Kaur family and raising nearly $200,000, she said her mother became worried after not seeing the teenager for an hour and found her “burned alive” in the oven.

The Walmart store has been closed since Kaur’s death.

According to CBC CanadaThe Nova Scotia Department of Labor, Skills and Immigration issued a cease-and-desist order for the bakery, but later rescinded the order. The agency said the bakery’s operations can safely resume when Walmart decides to reopen.

TikTok videos of Walmart employees demonstrating oven safety precautions in their stores have gone viral, raising questions about how the tragedy happened. ChrisBreezy559 posted a video of an oven at work that has received more than 28 million views, showing that it turns on from the outside and has a hard-to-close door.

Another video from TikTok with over 2 million views shows a Walmart worker explaining in her store: The door doesn’t lock unless you force it closed, and the oven door has an inside handle.

Halifax Regional Police has not publicly released new information since the initial report of Kaur’s sudden death and said the investigation “may take considerable time.”

Police urged people to be careful and not share speculation about the tragedy on social media.

Hindustan Times reports that Kaur and her mother are from Ludhiana in the Indian state of Punjab. They reportedly moved from the UK to Canada in 2021 and worked at Walmart for two years.

Kaur’s father and brother remain in India.