A day after the inferno at New Koilaghat Building, belonging to Eastern Railway, which claimed nine lives, a seven- member forensic team suspected malfunctioning in the electrical wires as a possible cause of the fire.

The massive blaze that brought back horrifying memories of the Stephen Court fire, broke out at around 6.10 pm when the employees were just gearing up to sign off for the day. The fire broke out on the 13th floor of the sprawling building which housed the server room, a lab and had a computerised ticket booking centre on its ground floor. The state Fire and Emergency services department struggled for 11 hours with twenty fire engines and three hydraulic ladders to douse the flame which was finally brought under control at around 5 a.m. The inferno resulted in disruption of online ticket booking for trains under Kolkata PRS. The PRS counter ticket booking at all other places were resumed except Kolkata and adjacent areas that are directly connected with the communication network from New Koilaghat Building.

Nine persons including firemen, one policeman of ASI rank, a RPF personnel, deputy chief commercial manager, a senior technician and a senior commercial clerk of Eastern Railway who were carrying out the rescue operations, were killed in the incident.

According to Kolkata Police, the preliminary investigation revealed that the nine persons died after encountering extreme heat and were found outside the lift. Two others, who were rescued in critical condition from inside the lift are miraculously alive.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee visited the spot at around 11 pm yesterday and said, “This is a railway property. Railways have a responsibility but they were unable to provide a map of the building. I don’t want to do politics over the tragedy but no one from the Railways has come to the site.” She also announced ex-gratia Rs 10 lakhs to each of the victims’ families and government job to the kin of each victim.

Refuting the allegations made by Banerjee, Eastern Railway general manager, Manoj Joshi, said, “It might be that some map was not available immediately but the teams of Railway officials were present at the spot and were constantly in touch.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed grief over the incident and announced exgratia Rs 2 lakhs to the victims’ kin and Rs 50,000 for those seriously injured while Union Railway minister Piyush Goyal took to Twitter and said, “A high-level inquiry consisting of four principal heads of Railway departments has been ordered to ascertain the cause of the fire.” He also added that all possible assistance has been provided by the Railways to the state government during this “unfortunate” fire accident.”

As informed by ER, the committee is expected to submit its report within two weeks.The incident sparked a high-voltage political blame game in the poll-bound state. Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and some BJP leaders visited the spot today making allegations against state government. On the other hand, the state Fire and Emergency Services minister pointed to negligence by the railway authorities.

With similar assertion, several railway employees working in the building also complained of inadequate fire fighting arrangement inside and claimed the fire alarm did not function when the blaze was reported. Members of Eastern Railway Men’s Union also alleged inadequate fire safety mechanisms in the building. In addition, apart from delay in power cut, lift being operational despite the blaze, sources in the fire department also alleged unavailability of sufficient water in the reservoir to fight the blaze.