My heart goes to the family members of the 34 persons killed in the Kolkata fire. The whole thing is so tragic. And yet we all will forget about it just as soon as news channels stop reporting it and newspapers stop writing about it. By Thursday/Friday the report was reduced to scroll on most of the news channels with updating the toll. This whole chalta hai attitude has to be blamed for this.
I am sure there are many such buildings spread across India. But they all lack proper fire fighting facilities. All the buildings in the Fort area in Mumbai are a tragedy in the making. But the problem is people sitting in Mumbai think why should we worry about something happening in Kolkata? Well you have a reason to worry when the caretaker of your building took money to have two more floors and also passed on some benefits to the authorities concerned to approve the changes.
Even the building in the Tuesday’s mishap had some structural changes which were later approved.
Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee admitted, \”The top two floors are illegal. We are investigating what the Kolkata Municipal Corporation\’s role was at that time, who is the owner of the building. The city has a coterie of illegal builders with whom the administration is involved”.
How come these changes approved. How come nobody saw the two floors come up all this while? It cannot be that they appeared from nowhere. Why the two floors were later legalised and on what grounds? Does it mean other buildings in the area can go for similar change? Just how much money was taken for this?
Remember what happened in Uphaar fire incident? Well even now people are waiting for justice. For the families of Stephen House victims the painful journey has just begun.