KL Report
SRINAGAR
The chief minister, Omar Abdullah has said that to know about the cause of the fire in the civil secretariat this morning will take some time.
In a Twitter post, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said the cause of the fire and the extent of the damage, particularly of records stored in the offices at the annexe will take some time to assess.
More than three hundred employees will have to suffer as their service books perished in the mysterious fire that broke out in an annexe of Civil Secretariat in Srinagar on Thursday morning.
Records of six government departments, a dispensary and four CRPF guardrooms perished in the fire and the two-storey building, made of wood and brick masonry, gutted completely.
Residents of Suthra Shahi as well as the Secretariat employees shouted slogans against Fire Service officers, complaining that the fire tenders reached late.
A major fire broke out Thursday morning inside the annexe of the Srinagar Civil Secretariat complex in which the two-storey wooden structure was gutted.
Flames and smoke were seen billowing from the wooden structure adjacent to the main building of the Civil Secretariat, the seat of the state government, minutes before the scheduled opening of the offices at 9.30 AM, officials said.
The building, which houses the offices of the accounts and treasuries among other departments and the record room, was engulfed in flames within no time, they said.
The fire was brought under control after several fire tenders fought the blaze for nearly two hours.
The annexe houses the offices of technical education, higher education, forest, accounts and treasuries, he said.
