Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday suspected a sabotage behind the Sealdah market fire which killed 19 persons. “Why has this incident happened? There are so many inflammable objects there (in the market) that if anybody intentionally lit a small fire, it could turn into an inferno.
There could be a conspiracy behind this. The probe will look into every angle,” Ms Banerjee said while announcing an investigation. She said that the inquiry would be conducted jointly by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), police and disaster management department.
One felt a sense of deja vu when the chief minister arrived at the fire-ravaged market at around 11 am and took control of the situation. Holding a microphone in hand, she began giving orders, controlling the crowd, asking people to facilitate smooth rescue operation and announcing compensation for the bereaved families. One had seen her play a similar role, only hours after a devastating fire at AMRI Hospital in south Kolkata had killed over 90 patients.
In another repeat, after a while, she left for the morgue where the bodies of the deceased were taken for post-mortem and identification. A temporary camp was set up where she sat with important ministers of her Cabinet like Partha Chatterjee, Firhad Hakim, Chandrima Bhattacharya and Arup Biswas. Here also she led from the front. She consoled the distraught family members. She ensured that post-mortems were conducted and bodies handed over to the respective families as swiftly as possible. She asked her lieutenants to arrange vehicles to carry the bodies to their respective destinations. She left the morgue at around 3.30 pm and by then 17 bodies were identified. When she visited the fire-ravaged market, Ms Banerjee articulated what some may consider unpalatable home truth. She blamed unplanned construction and violation of fire safety norms for the tragedy. She did not spare the traders either of the market. “The tendency to store plastic and other combustible goods in the same premises where food is also cooked and people also sleep is dangerous. This must stop,” she added.
She said that although her government had constructed night shelters for people who did not have homes, but no one wanted to go there. In what was a convert indictment of the KMC, she said that the building was a fire hazard. “I thought that only in densely-populated and congested areas like Tiljala, Topsia, Raja Bazar and Garden Reach, fire tenders found it difficult to enter. But I was not aware that such godowns also existed in this market,” she added.