Wednesday morning brought a pall of gloom among the traders of Surya Sen Market which was completely destroyed in a major fire. The inferno not only took away 19 lives, but also took away the basic livelihood of the traders and also the workers of the market.
The market housed eateries and shops and godowns of paper and plastic goods and decoratives for various occasion, including that of marriages. Gautam Talukdar, one of the shop-owners broke down and said: “Nothing is left. Everything has been gutted. Although I stay in the vicinity and came at around 4.15 am, the fire had already engulfed the ground, first and second floors. We could not even enter the market after the fire was doused due to tremendous heat and the fire officials told us that nothing was left inside.”
Echoing a similar pain, another trader Tamal Poddar said: “I had put up my decorative shop taking huge loans. My shop was housed at the backside of the first floor. One of my neighbouring shop-owner informed me about the incident. I was here at dawn helplessly watching the building getting gutted down. I feel like committing suicide.”
However, amidst grief, some of the traders were aggrieved too. Some blamed that the market authorities did not bother to maintain the safety norms. “Some of the shops were sub let who stacked combustible items such as plastics cups, plates, thermocol and others” a trader Probal Pramanik said.