MARGAO
The Shadow Council for Margao has demanded a Crime Branch inquiry into the fire incident at Sonsodo on Friday.
Making a direct charge that Friday’s fire incident was a man-made one, SCM convener Savio Coutinho stated that there was absolutely no reason even for a blind person to believe that the cause of fire was due to methane gas, which has become a permanent excuse for the MMC.
“The location of the fire incident does not involve any such methane gas theory,” Coutinho said, adding ‘It was truly shocking to hear from some MMC officials that the fire spread from the nearby school compound, where there was a minor fire incident earlier in the day’.
The SCM convener, who was present at the fire site till it was extinguished around 5.15 pm, stated that this fire incident was a handiwork of some vested interests to give direction for the clearance to some big magnitude, waste management proposal at Sonsodo. “If the Council, local representatives and the government wish to nurse and preserve this Sonsodo saga for posterity, then we suggest that the CCTV cameras could well be installed all around Sonsodo instead of the government offices. This could be deterrent to the repeated “fire conspiracies”, and will save the surrounding residents and the firefighters from the hardships on account of the fire incidents,” he said.
The SCM lauded the tireless efforts of the Fire Officer Gill and his entire team, through whose dedicated efforts, the fire was capped within four hours.
“We dare the government to order a Crime Branch inquiry into this fire incident and so also to make public a genuine/ authentic report of at least one fire incident of the past,” he added.
