SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Feb 2: The Dhanbad administration has sealed both blocks of Ashirwad Tower and has set up two committees to probe the fire in the apartment in which 14 people died and 18 were injured in the incident on Tuesday evening.
Notably, one committee under the additional collector would investigate the reasons for the fire while another committee of the Municipal Corporation and district fire department would assess the structural stability of apartments in both blocks after the fire.
The Deputy Commissioner (DC) Sandip Singh who set up the committees in the evening, has directed both committees to submit the probe reports within 72 hours.
Notably, Ashirwad Tower is a 10-storey apartment with two blocks A and B with 70 flats in it. The fire broke out in Block B on Tuesday evening but from the safety point of view, the district administration has sealed both blocks of Ashirwad Tower after shifting the residents of the flats to a Gurudwara till probe reports are submitted. Some of the residents have also shifted to houses of their relatives.
“The committee members would probe how the fire broke out whether bylaws were followed in the construction of apartments and fire safety measures facilities were equipped or not,” said the Deputy commissioner.
Moreover, health minister Banna Gupta also reached Dhanbad on Wednesday evening and met the injured patients of the fire incident at Patliputra Nursing Homes. He said that he had arrived at the directive of chief minister Hemant Soren and that the state government would bear the treatment cost of injured persons. The minister later also went to the fire incident site of the apartment and said that legal action would be taken if lapses in safety surfaced.
In the late evening of Wednesday, the last rites of the victims of the fire tragedy were completed at Jharia Goushala Burning Ghat after the post-mortem at the Shahid Nirmal Mahto Medical College Hospital (SNMMCH) at 5 pm.
