Gem cinema, gutted in an early morning blaze

Police have started a probe into the Friday morning fire at Gem cinema, at 159, AJC Bose Road, on the basis of a complaint by fire services officials.

The cinema has been closed since 1999, police said. Sixteen fire tenders battled for almost four hours to bring the blaze, first spotted at 2.05 am, under control. No one was injured in the incident but fire officials claimed the hall was completely gutted.

?The fire broke out on the ground floor of the building and rapidly spread to the first three floors. We have started an investigation into the incident based on a complaint lodged by the fire service officials,? said officer-in-charge of Entally police station Baidyanath Saha.

In its report to fire services minister Pratim Chatterjee, the department has stated that the cause of the fire was neither human error, nor an accident. ?As the hall was closed for years, there were no live wires which could have led to an electrical short circuit,? a fire official pointed out.

In the FIR, fire officials have suggested the arrest of the hall-owner ? police records say that one Arun Bajoria owned the property till 1999 ? for violating a string of rules relating to fire safety.

These include not obtaining a no-objection certificate for the building, earlier categorised as ?high risk?, and not possessing the necessary licence for running a cinema.

The licence is a must according to the West Bengal Fire Services Act, 1950.

?Even though the hall was not in use any more, the owner should have kept the fire services department in the know, which he didn?t,? said another fire official.

Later in the day, the fire minister visited the spot and after going through the preliminary report prepared by his department, called in the police to ensure that the owner was traced and interrogated.

?Several questions need to be answered, especially because the fire was in a huge property at a prime location of the city, and that too, at such an hour. The gates of the hall, I am told, were kept locked for years. But curiously, when the firemen arrived, they found it open, even though none of the local people had started any fire-fighting exercise till then,? Chatterjee said.

Soon after the minister?s inspection, a team of officers from the state forensic lab arrived on the spot and collected samples of items from the building. The forensic report is likely to be submitted next week. The exact cause of fire would be ascertained after that, officials added.