The main heritage structure of the building, however, remained unaffected from the raging fire that continued for several hours. Fifteen fire tenders were pressed into service to bring the blaze under control. It took the firefighters nearly three hours to douse the flames. Till evening, smoke was seen emanating from the building.

According to government sources, important official documents and material worth lakhs were gutted. The Public Works Department (PWD), responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of Writers’ Buildings, set up an eight-member committee to probe the cause of the fire.

Balai Pal, a supervisor of the PWD’s estate department, first noticed the smoke coming out of the fourth floor of a section of the annexe building around 6.40 am. Soon, 15 fire engines rushed to the spot. By 8.30 am, Deputy Commissioner (Detective Department) Jawed Shamim, Deputy Commissioner (Central) Damayanti Sen and state Fire and Emergency Services Minister Pratim Chatterjee reached the spot. While the offices of fire department and municipal affairs have been completely gutted, the office of the relief and rehabilitation department sustained minimal damage. The prison department’s office on the fifth floor of the building was also partially damaged.

The Writers’ Buildings, it was learnt, has only four night guards of whom only two are on duty every night. Their duty starts at 8 pm and ends at 6 am. “We also have 150 people from the ‘farassh’ department (orderlies) who arrive for their duty at 7 am. The fire broke out at a time when no one was on duty,” said Pal.

“Fire extinguishers are never checked and no attention is paid to fire safety measures,” he added.

THE BLAME GAME
No sooner the firefighters brought the situation under control the blame game began within the different departments of the government. State PWD minister Khisiti Goswami trained his guns on the finance department for not paying heed to their request for renovating the building.

“The Writers’ Building is over 200 years old. The wirings have become old and hang dangerously at many places. We have submitted a proposal of Rs 1.37 crore to the finance department for renovation, but till date we have not received the money. We are not shrugging responsibility, but we cannot be blamed for the fire,” Goswami said.

Shrugging off responsibilities State Fire and Emergency Services Minister Pratim Chatterjee, too, said: “Forensic reports will determine the cause of the fire. I have repeatedly been saying that the fire fighting system of the department needs to be upgraded but no one ever pays heed. Numerous meetings have been convened but nothing has been done so far.”

At 11 am, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee visited the spot and took stock of the situation.

Fire was a sabotage, says Mamata
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee demanded a CBI inquiry into the fire at Writers’ Buildings on Thursday. She alleged that it was a “sabotage to hide government’s misdeed”.

“All the documents containing the state government’s misdoings have been deliberately damaged,” alleged Banerjee. She urged the Centre to take a suo motu action against the state government.