Team Herald
MARGAO: A fire broke out in the Mamlatdar Office at Chaudi, Canacona, destroying stacks of official files and land mutation documents, among other items, early Tuesday morning.
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According to Canacona Fire station officer Ravindranath Pedneker, they received information about the fire at around 7.30 am, and a fire tender along with a team of personnel rushed to the spot.
Narendra Prabhuagrassani, surveyor of the Canacona Mamlatdar Office, said that the firefighters conducted a 40-minute operation and attempted to salvage whatever documents and files they could from the flames.
Apart from the fans, tables, electric fixtures, and wires in the Mutation Section on the ground floor of the office, official files containing countless documents were gutted. Staffers were later seen sorting out the ashes and trying to piece together burnt papers, in an attempt to take stock of what was lost.
An electrical short circuit is suspected to be the cause of the fire. Sources at the Canacona Fire Station said that they would write to the Electricity Department to ascertain the exact cause of the fire.
Meanwhile Canacona police inspector Chandrakant Gawas visited the place and conducted an inspection. The police have registered it as a fire incident.
Meanwhile, a crowd of local residents and visitors to the office was seen thronging the area and expressed dismay over the loss of precious and irretrievable documents.
