THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The fire that erupted in the General Administration department of the Secretariat here on August 25 was not due to a short circuit as per the report of the Kerala State Forensic Science Laboratory. The forensic department on Tuesday submitted the report in the Chief Judicial Magistrate court in Thiruvananthapuram.
The report stated that the forensic team could not find any possibility of short circuit after inspecting the wires connected to the fan from the switch. Earlier, there was an initial finding that the fire could have been triggered from the fan due to a short circuit.
However, the report by the forensic team has left open the cause of the fire. The Special Investigation Team led by ADGP Manoj Abraham will probe the cause of the fire following the report from the forensic team. Earlier, the chief electrical officer of Secretariat had also submitted a report to the forensic team and SIT making it clear that the fire was not due to a short circuit.
According to the investigation team, as many as 10,000 pages of various files had been partially burnt. However, the officers said all the destroyed files have equivalent soft copies in the e-file system.
The categorisation of files was completed with the help of 13 officers from various departments in the Secretariat. The team said all the files pertain to the government notifications to various departments. The team had also scanned the damaged files for safe storage in the e-file system. The fire broke out at the protocol division of the General Administration department, in which several office files were gutted.
It occurred at a time when the working of the protocol office was under the scanner after it emerged that officials here had made lapses while dealing with diplomatic baggage destined for the UAE Consulate in Thiruvananthapuram. The fire was first noted in one of the computers by 5 pm. Shortly, it engulfed a portion of the office. Due to Covid-related restrictions, only two employees were present there at that time.
Though the fire was doused within 15 minutes, the files stored in racks nearby were gutted. The incident triggered strong reactions from opposition parties, who claimed that the fire outbreak was staged to sabotage the ongoing probe into the gold smuggling case.