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Calcutta, Dec. 11: The executive who was in charge of AMRI Hospitals, Dhakuria, on Thursday night told The Telegraph today that he had made “all the calls” he should have made after he was informed of the basement fire.
Sources familiar with AMRI said Sajid Hossain’s first call would have been to Preeta Banerjee, the vice-president in charge of the hospital’s administration, without whose approval no employee would call either police or the fire brigade.
Preeta was at the police headquarters at Lalbazar this afternoon and was questioned for almost three hours. She was allowed to leave late in the afternoon, possibly because the police are not supposed to question a woman after sunset.
Another official disclosed to this paper that the fire started in the cotton stocks in the basement pharmacy. The fire was first noticed by a pharmacy assistant who alerted the maintenance staff, said the official who did not want to be identified.
The other vice-president (operations), Rajesh Parekh, was questioned till late in the evening.
However, a source close to Preeta appeared to contradict Hossain’s version. The source said Preeta got the first call from the hospital’s telephone operator at 3.58am.
“The operator was very scared and told her there was a fire. Preeta called the assistant general manager, maintenance, Sanjib Pal, who told her the fire services control room was not responding to calls. So she called up the hospital’s fire officer, Shaktipada Deb, a former fire services official, and told him to use his contacts,” the source said.
According to official records, the fire services department got the first alert at 4.08am on Friday, not from the hospital, but from the Lalbazar control room. The fire is believed to have been first detected around 2.15am.
According to the hospital’s fire emergency drill, the maintenance staff should call the security and the security should alert their boss and the night administrator.
“I made all the calls that were necessary after the fire broke out. The truth will emerge during the course of the police investigation,” Hossain said today. Asked if he had also called the fire services, he hung up.
Hospital sources claimed Hossain had made several calls to 101, the fire service emergency, before calling Preeta. They claimed that he had also called the police headquarters and Lake police station — less than 500 metres away — and received assurance of help. The police denied the claim.
None of the hospital sources, however, would confirm when these calls were made. However, some insisted that all calls would be proved in court through records.
The police said today that they had got a lone alert over 100, around 4.06am, after which the fire brigade was alerted.
Lake police station said it was first alerted about the fire by the police headquarters at 4.10am. “Several minutes after our personnel had left for AMRI following the Lalbazar alert, we got a call from an AMRI official,” an officer said.
A senior fire official said the possibility of a call to the emergency number going unanswered was remote. “Our control room is always manned,” he said.
Police and fire personnel expressed surprise about calls being made only on the emergency numbers, saying officials of an old establishment such as AMRI should have been aware of the direct numbers of the nearest fire station, at Kalighat, about 4km away.
BSNL sources said that even if someone had dialled 101, there was no way the call could be traced as it didn’t connect. “A call is not registered unless the line connects. Or the landline, where the call was made, has to have a caller ID,” said a BSNL official.
A source said the phones at the fire service control room were not fitted with caller identification devices.
The hospital has been accused of not calling the police and the fire brigade even long after the fire had been detected. Its guards had prevented people from the neighbourhood from entering the premises to help the patients, 90 of whom died, choked by poisonous fumes.
The hospital had initially claimed that the fire was detected only around 3.30am.
The police today said that from calls made among themselves by AMRI staff, it was apparent that the fire had started between 2.15am and 2.30am. “The chain of events has been almost established,” said an officer.
During interrogation, Preeta allegedly failed to explain why she did not make a call to the fire brigade even after being informed of the fire. “She made several phone calls to other officials and also spoke to a few directors after being informed of the fire,” the source close to Preeta said.
A police officer said Preeta tried to give them the impression that she had not been properly briefed about the fire by the hospital official who called her.
The police then asked her why she had called up the other senior officials and some of the directors after the call if she felt the fire was not that serious.
“We are examining her call records to find out when exactly she had received the call from the hospital and whom she called immediately after that,” an officer said. “Talking separately to Preeta and (VP operations) Parekh we have been able to establish the broad chronology of events,” he added.
Preeta, hospital sources said, was in charge of maintenance, food and beverages, housekeeping, security and biomedical equipment.
Hossain is among the three night managers at AMRI Hospitals. A night manager is in charge of the hospital during the night. According to the norms of AMRI, in case of operational problems, the night manager should call Preeta and in case of medical issues, the medical superintendent, Suman Ghosh, has to be informed. Issues relating to finance, like problems over bills, are dealt with by Parekh.
All three report to the board of directors.
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