Sabotage suspected in Kolkata hospital fire
Suspicion of sabotage leading to a fire breaking out at the 183-year-old state-run Calcutta Medical College and Hospital on Wednesday has prompted the medical institution’s authorities to order an internal inquiry a seven-member committee led by hospital superintendent Dr Asish Basu. The committee will submit the report to the state health department within seven days.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who also heads the health portfolio, had on Wednesday ordered two parallel inquiries — to be conducted by the public works department (PWD), which is in charge of the maintenance of the hospital, and the fire services department.
“We suspect that there was sabotage to suppress some irregularities. Therefore, we have decided to constitute the internal probe committee. Let the truth be revealed and the offenders be punished,” said the president of West Bengal Medical Council, Nirmal Maji, who is also a legislator of the ruling Trinamool Congress in the state.
Maji, who is also the chairman of the patients’ welfare committee of Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, claimed that it recently came to the notice of the health department that the pharmacy store, where the fire broke out, had been locally procuring medicines and medical equipment at inflated rates, instead following the normal practice of procuring them from central medical stores.
It was initially believed that an electrical short circuit may have caused the fire. However, hospital employees on Thursday found the fans and lights to be working in the pharmacy, something that would not happen in the case of a short circuit, said a health department official requesting anonymity.
“Medicines stored in the pharmacy have been wasted,” West Bengal’s minister of state for health Chandrima Bhattacharya had told reporters Wednesday. Hospital authorities had put the loss at ₹5 crore.
“The probe by the PWD will check whether there were any lapses in the maintenance and fire safety system in the hospital. The probe by the fire services department, will try to find out the reason behind the fire,” said a senior state government officer, who asked not to be named.
“Each building of the hospital is under CCTV camera surveillance. It will be probed whether the CCTV camera at the pharmacy building was working or not when the fire broke out and whether the fire sensor was functional,” the official quoted above said.
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