Fire dept closes probe into Garib Nagar fire

Unable to ascertain the cause of the fire that engulfed the Garib Nagar slums in Bandra (East) on March 5, the fire brigade department has decided to temporarily close the probe into the incident.

Unable to ascertain the cause of the fire that engulfed the Garib Nagar slums in Bandra (East) on March 5, the fire brigade department has decided to temporarily close the probe into the incident.

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The fire brigade department said that it was unable to arrive on any conclusion in its probe into the fire, which gutted more than 700 shanties and rendered around 2,000 families homeless.

Manisha Mhaiskar, additional municipal commissioner said, “Fire department officials have shut the case for now, but they will assist the police in their probe.”

A senior official of the fire brigade said, “We interrogated around 40 eyewitnesses. We found not one. There are diverse accounts of the reason behind the fire. As we could not find anything substantial to prove that either of these accounts is true, we have decided to officially state the cause of the fire as ‘unknown’.”

Another fire brigade official said, “We will now let the police take over the probe. Once their investigation is complete, we will consider resuming our probe into the case”.