Bengal Governor submits report about ‘haunting’ incident

West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose on Friday submitted a detailed report to the Centre on his observations and findings following a visit to the gutted site of a momo factory and warehouses at Anandapur in South 24 Parganas district.

The note sent by the Governor is a strong one, in which he has pointed out the lapses that led to the incident, the official said. “The recent tragedy at a warehouse in Nazirabad, near Kolkata, where 25 lives have reportedly been lost, and 27 remain missing-is a haunting echo of past disasters that have stained our collective conscience,” the Governor said in a post on X.

Earlier in the day, Bose visited the site and took stock of the situation. “The Governor was shocked by the conditions at the fire site.

He took detailed notes during the visit, and the report prepared by him has been submitted to the central government,” the official said. Bose described the incident as “haunting” in his report to the Centre, the official said. The governor also spoke to police officers present at the spot and enquired about the cause of the blaze.

“I am here on a fact-finding exercise, not on a fault-finding exercise,” the governor said after visiting the spot. “I do not want to blame anybody, but the fact remains that there has been failure on the part of authorities concerned, else this kind of repeated incidents would not have taken place,” he told reporters. Later in the evening, PM Modi announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund for the next of kin of those who died in the fire, and Rs 50,000 for the injured.