Firemen Raj Singh and Rajbir of the Najafgarh station are under a departmental scanner after a PCR van was telephonically alerted last Friday that a fire had broken out in a jhuggi cluster in the Najafgarh area. ``The call had apparently been made from the fire station itself,'' deputy fire chief R.C. Sharma said. It was traced by the PCR personnel.

``As we need to know the intensity of a fire to send in the fire fighters, the officer in our control room dialed the PCR to cross check the source of the tip-off,'' said Sharma. And the cat was, apparently, soon out of the bag. Two years ago, a similar case involving attendant Shri Prakash of the Bawana statition led to his suspension.

The inquiry is still on. While it is still not clear why staffers like the two firemen currently being investigated would themselves make a fake service call, officials say it must have been done for a lark, or ``perhaps, someone wanted a free ride home on a fire tender''.