The fire at Jessop on October 17 was not an accident but a deliberate act, said a forensic expert who visited the factory premises and collected samples on Thursday.

A four-member team from the state forensic laboratory spent two hours at the Jessore Road address.

"The fire was a deliberate act. We are yet to ascertain the type of fuel used to set a part of the factory premises ablaze. We can only come up with the specifics after testing the samples. We identified four places as seats of fire," one of the forensic experts who visited the factory said.

The experts were accompanied by eight officials of CID, which is probing the cause of the fire following a complaint registered suo motu by the Dum Dum police.

The sleuths had taken along some men who had allegedly stolen materials from the Jessop premises after the fire broke out.

"The fire broke out at a workshop shed and spread to the canteen and the administrative building. Five almirahs stashed with documents were completely gutted," a CID officer said. "We will ask the Jessop management to disclose the contents of the documents kept in the almirahs."

The sleuths also visited gate 12, which was allegedly used by thieves to take out the stolen materials from the factory premises.

"The thieves loaded the stolen items on Matador vans kept outside the gate and sped away," the officer said.

The CID has summoned Jessop's Pawan Kumar Ruia and two others - Ashok Agarwal, former general manager of the factory, and Mahesh Gupta, former finance officer - for questioning on Friday.

The three have been asked to turn up at the CID's Bhabani Bhavan headquarters around 11am.

Meanwhile, company CEO Ashok Agarwal is in police custody.

"We had summoned Ruia for questioning on Wednesday but he did not turn up. We issued a second notice asking him and two others to appear for questioning on Friday. We are expecting him (Ruia) on Friday," a CID officer said.

"We will ask specific questions, including ones about the company's last asset audit report. We need the report to find out the volume of theft from the Jessop premises in the recent past," another CID officer said.

Ruia had moved a petition in the high court seeking quashing of the case against him. On Wednesday, the court refused to stay the probe but asked the CID not to take any coercive measure against him so long he helped the probe.

Cracker haul

A youth was arrested in Kestopur for allegedly selling illegal firecrackers. Raju Roy was picked up by a team from Baguiati police station from his makeshift shop. Around 40kg of crackers were seized.