Fire engulfs a part of the police reserve in the city on Monday. Picture by Eastern Projections

Guwahati, Feb. 16: The families of 60 policemen were left without a roof over their heads when a fire reduced their houses to ashes in the high-security precincts of the Guwahati City Police Reserve on AT Road today.

“No casualty was reported but the loss of property seems to be huge, more than Rs 1 crore,” an official of the State Fire Service Organisation (SFSO) said.

Two persons, including a girl, were rumoured to have sustained minor burn injuries, but both the SFSO and police denied it.

Ruling out “sabotage”, city police spokesperson and additional superintendent of police Debajit Deori said preliminary probe suggested that it was an “accident”.

He refused to comment on the total amount of damage, saying the loss was still being assessed.

The fire is suspected to have been sparked by a short circuit in an electrical pole with low hanging wires between 8.30 and 9 this morning.

The fire spread through wires to a house nearby and then engulfed others aided by combustible items such as wooden beams of the ceilings of the decades-old houses and LPG cylinders, about 10 of which exploded under the impact of the fire.

The congested area also helped the blaze to spread. “The loss in the fire could have been minimised if the area was not so congested which made reaching time-consuming,” the official said, adding that it took 14 fire tenders over an hour to bring the inferno under control.

All the staff quarters gutted were Assam-type houses with tin roofs that had been allotted to lower grade employees of city police such as constables and havildars.

Sanjay Prasad, a traffic constable of Noonmati police whose house was gutted, said he was left with nothing except the uniform he was wearing.

“I have shifted my family to the house of one of my relatives. I have lost everything in the fire and really don’t know how to make up for the loss,” he added.

Another police constable, Ram Kripal Singh, blamed lack of regular maintenance of the maze of electrical wires and open meter boxes for the incident.

“The loss would have been more if the fire had broken out at night because there are not enough emergency exits,” he added.

Soon after the incident, East Guwahati MLA Robin Bordoloi, director-general of police G.M. Srivastava and other top police officials visited the site.

The DGP later announced a compensation of Rs 10,000 to each affected family.

The Assam police headquarters has also decided to facilitate a loan of Rs 20,000 to each affected policeman from banks or financial institutions.

“The equated monthly installments (EMI) of the loan will be deducted from the salary of the policeman,” a source in the Assam police headquarters said.