Picking through the debris of the devastating fire that razed two floors of Stephen Court in Park Street, one of Kolkata?s heritage buildings, on March 23, firemen found 17 bodies on the stairs leading to the terrace. Strewn around were keys of all sizes?the terrace was locked and everyone tried in vain to escape the fire. That?s just one of the rules that were flouted in one of the city?s worst fire tragedies in three years.
Rules were bent when two floors were added to the 80-year-old structure in 1984. Taking the help of another law, the two floors were regularised in 1989 with a huge penalty to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. Rules were bent to allow offices to come up at will in a building that also had residences. Many other ?heritage? buildings of Kolkata are tinderboxes too. Even now, just outside Stephen Court and Queen?s Mansions next door, there are dangling wires. The Stephen Court toll swiftly rose to 43?and many died because staircases were blocked by offices which either used them as godowns or a makeshift office. The worst hit were young employees of a call centre on the fourth floor of the seven-storey building. They could ne-it her go up, nor run down.
Stephen Court stands on one corner of Park Street, Kolkata?s hippest street. Spread across four blocks it also houses several city landmarks, like the confectionary Flury?s, Peter Cat restaurant and the RPG Group?s flagship store Music World. Once the fire started, so fierce was the blaze, and with firemen ill-equipped to fight it, at least five people leaped to their death.
So, who is to blame for the Stephen Court fire? It?s impossible to pin it down to one person, because the ownership of the building too is a maze. The Stephen Court representatives didn?t do much to maintain the property, it appears. Rents were low, some were into litigation and the residents, apart from carrying out SOS maintenance, did nothing to make the tinderbox safer. In this, civil society must also take blame. Some residents have lived at Stephen Court for four decades and didn?t see it coming. If the city?s other death traps?there are many beautiful but dilapidated old buildings around ?don?t learn from Stephen Court, lives have been lost in vain.