By IANS
Kolkata : Magsaysay award winning social activist and writer Mahasweta Devi Monday slammed the West Bengal government for failing to extinguish a blaze in Kolkata.
She accused the ruling Left of turning the city into a realtors’ haven that robbed the area of water bodies and depleted ground water.
“While Burrabazar burnt, they (the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist or CPI-M) were holding rally at the Brigade Parade Ground. They are responsible for the complete depletion of the ground water and the vanishing act of the water bodies,” the firebrand writer said here at a function.
In one of the worst infernos of Kolkata, a fire that broke out in the wee hours of Saturday in Kolkata’s biggest wholesale market Burrabazar raged on for the third consecutive day Monday, consuming shops, homes and a market in a high-rise building, blunting all efforts of the army and civilian firemen to douse the flames.
“They have no arrangement of foam or ladders tall enough to put out the blaze. It is shameful,” Mahasweta Devi said.
“All this government had done was to unleash a real estate boom and mushrooming of high-rise buildings,” she added.
The fire fighting in the Burrabazar market was initially halted by the absence of water resources nearby. The delay only helped the fire spread further.