Firefighters try to douse the blaze at Mantralaya, the Maharashtra state secretariat, in Mumbai on Thursday. (Fotocorp)

Mumbai, June 21: Mumbai blinked in disbelief today as a huge blaze that broke out in state secretariat Mantralaya raged uncontrolled for over four hours, charring to death two persons and gutting several key offices and documents.

The high-security offices of chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and deputy Ajit Pawar were burnt down in the fire that broke out around 2.40pm on the fourth floor of the south Mumbai state administrative headquarters, spread over 7 lakh sqft. It rapidly engulfed the top four floors, destroying crucial documents and files, possibly some related to the Adarsh housing society scam.

Chief minister Chavan, who personally supervised rescue and evacuation, said there were no reports of deaths although over 6,000 people were present in the secretariat this afternoon. But two charred bodies were found near the sixth-floor office of his deputy around 10pm.

They have been identified as Umesh Potekar, former president of the Baramati Co-operative Bank, and Mahesh Gugale, vice-president of the merchant association of Baramati. The two were on the sixth floor to see Ajit Pawar, who belongs to Baramati, and may have been trapped in the fire.

As a thick curtain of smoke threatens to engulf the Tricolour atop Mantralaya, employees lower the flag and fold it. (AFP pictures)

At least 16 persons have been admitted to three hospitals with respiratory problems, minor burns and injuries. One person is reported to be critical. About 65 people trapped on the fifth, sixth and seventh floors were safely rescued by fire-fighters. A dozen key departments were gutted.

The fire at Mantralaya, which has hundreds of wood-panelled cabins, is believed to have broken out in a fourth-floor server room next to the office of tribal development minister Babanrao Pachpute.

The minister said he heard a loud sound in the afternoon, after which the power went off. “My staff told me a short circuit had caused a fire next door. I tried using the fire extinguisher in the office, but the fire was too big to control by then,” Pachpute said.

An official in the secretariat’s public relations department recounted what happened. “There was a meeting being held by the deputy CM on the sixth floor. As soon as we realised something was wrong, evacuation began,” he said.

“Some of us staff members remained trapped and tried finding a way out of the window. We slid down the drainage pipe and landed on the window platform of the fourth floor from where we were rescued with fire brigade ladders.”

The chief PROs to the home minister and the chief minister have suffered injuries and been admitted to JJ Hospital. One got stuck in an AC duct while trying to escape.

The chief minister said fire officials “occasionally” did a safety audit of Mantralaya but conducted a fire drill inside the building on the second Saturday of every month.

“That ensured there was no stampede though 6,000 people had to be evacuated from the building today. The rescue operations were done easily,” he said.

BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman claimed the fire appeared to be a result of “deliberate sabotage” to destroy Adarsh records. Union ministers Vilasrao Deshmukh and Sushil Kumar Shinde and former chief minister Ashok Chavan are scheduled to depose before a judicial commission probing the scam later this month.

CBI sources, however, said relevant Adarsh files were either in the agency’s custody or had been submitted to Bombay High Court.

Chief minister Chavan said the damage to files could only be ascertained after a check. “We have begun electronic scanning of files. The work is yet to be completed, but so far 3.18 crore pages have been scanned.”

He has ordered a probe by the crime branch of Mumbai police. Structural and fire audits have been lined up tomorrow morning.