Three injured as four Ghayabari houses gutted

SNS, KURSEONG, 5 NOVEMBER 2018: Three persons were injured and tfour houses, including a shop, were gutted in a major fire that occurred at Ghayabari near the railway station under the Kurseong sub-division late last night. The houses which were destroyed belonged to Kishore Khaling, Prashant Khaling, Suraj Chettri and the house cum-shop of one Prakash Gupta.Two of the four houses were completely destroyed, while two others were partially burnt.

Though officials said that the cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained, it is learnt that the fire originated from the house-cum-shop at around 10 pm and spread to the nearby four houses within a few minutes.

The fire was brought under control at around 12:30 am after efforts put in by the locals, police personnel from the Tindharia Police outpost and

a fire tender from Kurseong.

The injured have been identified as Prakash Gupta, his wife and son Saroja Gupta and Abhay Gupta and Kishore Khaling. While Abhay was discharged after preliminary treatment, the others are still undergoing treatmnent in the Kurseong sub-divisional hospital,

"We tried to extinguish the flames by using various means, but as the house were made of wood, they immediately caught fire from the nearby houses. All household items and important documents were burnt in the fire," a local said.

Meanwhile, the, Vice-chairman of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) Board of Administrators, Anit Thapa, and Kurseong MLA Rohit Sharma visited the site today and took stock of the situation. Mr Thapa announced Rs lakh financial aid to each of the four elected families from the GTA's side.

"A relief camp has been set up to provide relief and aid, but we are hoping that leaders who visited us today would help us in building our houses anew," a victim said.