A massive fire at a government building in Kolkata's Alipore area has destroyed nearly 4,000 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), prompting police to register an FIR and launch a multi-agency investigation into the incident.
The blaze broke out around 9:50 am on June 11 at the multi-storey administrative building of the South 24 Parganas Zilla Parishad. Several fire tenders were pressed into service to contain the flames, while cooling operations continued for nearly 24 hours before the situation was brought under control.
According to West Bengal Minister of State for Fire and Emergency Services Kaushik Chowdhury, around 4,000 EVMs used in 10 Assembly constituencies were stored on the upper floors of the building and were completely destroyed in the fire.
Officials have expressed concern over what they described as an unusual pattern in the spread of the blaze. While the fire is believed to have originated on a lower floor, it reportedly caused extensive damage to the upper levels where the EVMs were stored, leaving several intermediate floors largely unaffected.
"Preliminary investigation suggests that the fire started on the third or fourth floor. We wonder how it reached the eighth and ninth floors. The fifth, sixth and seventh floors in between were not damaged," Chowdhury said on Thursday.
Following a complaint lodged by the district administration, police registered an FIR and initiated an investigation. A forensic team has been deployed to examine the site and collect evidence to determine the cause of the fire.
"An FIR was registered and an investigation has been initiated. Forensic officials had come to collect samples. As the building was still hot, they faced difficulty in entering the floors that were gutted," the minister said.
Authorities have not yet ascertained whether the blaze was caused by an electrical fault or any other factor. Investigators are examining all possibilities.
Meanwhile, Kolkata Police have constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the incident. Officials said forensic findings will be crucial in establishing the exact cause of the fire, reconstructing how it spread through the building, and assessing the full extent of the damage.
The destruction of thousands of EVMs has triggered concern and intensified scrutiny of the incident, with investigators expected to focus on both the origin of the fire and the circumstances under which it spread to the floors where the machines were stored.
