At least 21 people have died due to a fire that burnt two godowns to cinders in West Bengal's Anandapur area on Republic Day (January 26).
At least 27 missing persons reports have been filed by families of those thought to have burned in the blaze.
"We recovered five body parts from the charred remains of the gutted buildings today. So far, 21 body parts, including partially burnt and skeletal remains, have been recovered from the site," Baruipur Police District Superintendent Shubhendra Kumar told PTI.
16 of these remains have been sent for DNA sampling.
Earlier media reports claimed that the fire had started at a godown operated by momo outlet, Wow! Momo. However, the company later clarified that the fire had started at a Pushpanjali Decorators warehouse before it spread to the Wow! Momo godown nearby.
The fire reportedly took place just before dawn, due to which many of the workers sleeping inside were burnt alive and died instantly, with no means of escape.
This was amplified by the massive negligence of fire safety rules, which led to the arrest of Gangadhar Das, who reportedly owned both the properties that have now been burnt. He has been remanded to police custody till February 4.
The police added that both the facilities engulfed by the fire—which took multiple firefighter shifts across four days to put out—had also been built on illegally encroached land.
The police probe into the Anandapur warehouse fire, which has sparked a political blame game, is now aiming to find out why exactly were the workers not able to escape the fire. Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has also been imposed around the premises to prevent people from messing with the evidence.