Kolkata: The state fire department on Friday declared the sixth and seventh floors of 9 Camac Street, which house Trinamool national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s office, “unsafe from a fire and life-safety point of view” and ordered that they be vacated immediately.A basement floor, where people visiting or working at Abhishek’s office park their cars, was also found to be “unsafe”. Soon after the order was issued, private guards shut the gates leading to the two upper floors and got the basement vacated.The fire department action followed an inspection of the two floors and the basement by its officials on Monday. Fire officials did not clarify whether the other floors in the 2B+G+7 commercial building on Camac Street were inspected or not.On Aug 27, a team comprising police officers and Kolkata Municipal Corporation representatives had removed a Trinamool billboard from the building’s roof on the grounds that it lacked authorisation. An appeal by the party against Calcutta High Court’s refusal to pass an interim order on the removal is likely be heard by Supreme Court on Monday.The closure notice came just a day after 14 masked men raided the Trinamool office and vandalised computers, CCTV monitors and glass panels before fleeing with files containing documents. The gang also allegedly assaulted four party employees. Six men arrested for the ransacking were sent to judicial custody on Friday as police did not seek their custody.The department said on Tuesday that it had found serious fire-safety violations on the sixth and seventh floors, including an expired Fire Safety Certificate, a non-functional fire alarm system, inadequate fire exits, absence of water in the fire riser and storage of LPG cylinders.Following the inspection, the department issued notices to the building’s owners — Rama Devi Goenka and MS Piramo Investors Ltd — and the occupants of the two floors under section 37A of West Bengal Fire Services Act.Following the inspection, the department issued notices to the building’s owners — Rama Devi Goenka and MS Piramo Investors Ltd — and the occupants of the two floors under section 37A of West Bengal Fire Services Act, asking them to explain why the basement and the other two floors should not be vacated and sealed. They were given 48 hours to appear in a hearing and file their replies.The owners didn’t appear for the hearing. Abhishek’s representatives submitted that it was the owners’ responsibility to make the necessary fire safety arrangements and obtain a Fire Safety Certificate. The fire department then decided to shut down the floors as they lacked a Fire Safety Certificate.Two directives sent to the owners and the occupants said the three-year validity and renewal period of the certificate had lapsed on Aug 10.“Hence, considering the fact that due to non-maintenance and inadequacy of the required fire safety measures in the said occupancy(s) of the building, the occupancy(s) is unsafe from fire and life safety point of view, it poses imminent threat to the safety of life and property of the building and its surroundings, you are directed to vacate the aforesaid occupancy(s) immediately,” the fire department order said.A department official said the lease deed submitted by Trinamool and verbal statements of its representatives made it clear that the onus of installing fire safety measures and obtaining a Fire Safety Certificate was on the party.Abhishek’s lawyer Arka Nag said Trinamool would take legal action against the order. “If the entire building lacks fire safety measures, why have only the sixth and seventh floors and the basement been shut down? Who will take responsibility if a fire breaks out on any of the other floors?”Trinamool spokesperson and Beleghata MLA Kunal Ghosh said, “I didn’t use that office. Those who used it will know.”Ritabrata Banerjee, leader of opposition in the assembly, said: “If someone is occupying a house forcibly and there is a risk to human life, the administration can certainly take action.”
