The police, the Gujarat Pollution Control Board, the inspector of factories all claimed they tried to identify the gas and pinpoint the source of leak, but without success. Director-General of Police C P Singh said, ``We are still working on it.''

It was around 9 pm that the authorities started receiving frantic calls from panicky people about the foul-smelling gas. The police and fire brigade were asked to trace the source of the leak. They identified the Gurukrupa Cold Storage. The leakage at the cold storage was scaled, but the smell persisted. The gas was not ammonia, which is used at cold storages.

The main affected areas were Naranpura, Sabarmati, Drive-in Road, Wadaj, Sarkhej, Satellite,Vastrapur, and Navargpur, all in the western part of the city. Thousand of people kept awake, fearing the worst. The smell died away only around 3 am, on its own.

Throughout Tuesday, while lowly officials tried to find the source of the gas, senior officials were busy passing the buck. District Collector V S Gadhvi said he was not in the city on Monday night and therefore didn't know much about the incident, but had instructed the officials concerned to take necessary action.

Most of the areas fall under the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority. But AUDA chairman Surendra Patel said, ``AUDA is not concerned with such matters,'' Patel also chairs the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation steering committee, the decision-making body of the AMC.

Municipal commissioner B K Sinha only said the gas was not ammonia, but was yet to be identified. He urged people to contact the city control room if they had any information.

Ahmedabad has 12 MLAs in the Assembly, including three Ministers. Another 14 MLAs, four ofwhom are Ministers, live in the city. None of them raised the matter in the Assembly. Nor did the Government think it necessary to make a statement on the matter to reassure the people.

An official in the district collectorate said that, though they had all powers to tackle such situations, the nodal agency was the Gujarat Pollution Control Board. Additional Commissioner of Police V V Rabari, who was involved with the gas detection operation since Monday night, apparently threw up his hands, saying the inspector of factories had been asked to locate the erring industrial unit.

Meanwhile, the fire brigade said it had checked the valve at Gurukrupa Cold Storage on Tuesday morning but found no leakage. However, the cold storage has been shut down as a precautionary measure and the Forensic Science Laboratory has taken gas samples from there.