Kolkata:
Anger over the Stephen Court fire, which claimed 24 lives in Kolkata, has forced Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to admit that the top two floors where the fire took place were illegally constructed. He has said the Kolkata Municipal Corporation will also face an investigation along with the building's owner. (
Surfers' pics of the fire at Stephen Court)
"The top two floors of Stephen Court are illegal. We are investigating what the Kolkata Municipal Corporation's role was at that time, who is the owner of the building. The city has a coterie of illegal builders with whom the administration is involved. Unless we take tough steps against them, we cannot stop this. Exemplary punishment will be taken. The fire has taught the government to intervene in such situations immediately," Bhattacharjee said in the West Bengal Assembly in response to a question from the Congress' Manash Bhuiyan.
The chief minister's comments come a day after the Kolkata mayor Bikash Bhattacharya said the top floors at Stephen Court were regularised and could not be called illegal.
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation maintains that the floors were not illegal. They say that Stephen Court was not given any notice for building violations because there was no complaint and that the civic body cannot check all 10 lakh buildings in the city for violations. (Read:
Sisters look for missing 22-yr-old)
The Kolkata Municipality is bringing down the charred portion of the heritage building to ensure that the rest of it is not weakened. Twenty people died in the inferno and 25 others were injured. Ten people are still missing.
Firemen searched for the missing persons in the debris on Thursday even as municipal workers began demolishing the damaged portions of the top floors of the building.
Forensic experts are scheduled to conduct DNA tests on Thursday on four of the 24 retrieved bodies whose identity remained disputed in claims and counter-claims.
The firemen, who gained access to the ravaged interiors of the fifth and sixth floors of the building yesterday, were on Thursday busy removing the debris in search of missing persons.
Police said the stench from one corner of the fifth floor had prompted the firemen to look for possible bodies hidden underneath the rubble.
As a special team of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), assisted by personnel of the civil defence, began demolishing the damaged parts of the top fifth and sixth floors of the building, a section of the residents demonstrated demanding that they be allowed access to the building before the demolition began to collect their valuables.
The police and KMC officials had a tough time pacifying the demonstrators some of whom, including women, were seen lunging at the officials present to oversee the exercise.
A senior KMC official announced through a megaphone that only damaged parts of the fifth and sixth floor of the building, and not the entire two floors, would be pulled down.
He said the demolition became necessary as the fire-ravaged parts were in a precarious condition which might further endanger lives.
The 20 bodies, identified so far, have been handed over to relatives after post-mortem.
The police is looking for the building promoter Sanjay Bagadia after caretaker Tarun Bagadia and Ram Shankar Singh were arrested yesterday, Joint CP Jawed Shamim said.
Shamim told PTI that police was looking for some more people in connection with the fire tragedy, however, he refused to divulge further details.
(With PTI inputs)