Worked for: West Bengal Fire and Emergency Services as an auxiliary fire operator
Purkait was one of those who had jumped into the rescue of patients at the AMRI Hospital in Dhakuria after a fire broke out at the hospital in December 2011, leaving 92 dead. He was only 14 then but did not think twice before joining few others in bringing out the trapped patients.
On Monday night too, Purkait didn’t think twice and was one of the first to enter the building when fire was engulfing the 13th floor, said his colleagues. Purkait was in one of the elevators and his body was recovered along with several others.
Colleagues of the deceased firemen at the fire brigade HQ
KOLKATA: Twenty three-year-old Biman Purkait had joined the fire services at the headquarters on Free School Street. A resident of the Dhakuria Panchanantala, he was merely 15-years-old when he joined his brother Suman Purkait as part of the local effort to stop the raging AMRI fire. Both of them had resolved to be firefighters. Suman had joined six-and-a-half years ago and Biman joined the fire services three years later in 2018 and got posted with the headquarters. This was supposed to be one of his last assignments before he took a break - he was set for a registry marriage next week with his school sweetheart. He had left home on Sunday evening saying he would be back after 24 hours. Instead, we found him in such a pitiable condition that his devastated father - who runs a tea stall nearby - had to even agree to undergo a DNA test if required, recalled his cousin Ravi Haldar.
Mamata said: “This is a railway building. They have some responsibility. I don t want to politicise an accident, but it is unfortunate that no one from the railway department has come.”
“I have also been told by my minister that the fire officials had asked for a map of the building for easier access but received no cooperation.”
She later said a single railway official had turned up.
As the night wore on, teary-eyed relatives of some of the missing began arriving.
State fire minister Sujit Bose, Calcutta police commissioner Soumen Mitra, director-general of fire and emergency services Jawed Shamim, Calcutta mayor Firhad Hakim and other senior state government officials were at the spot.
9 persons killed after fighting massive fire in Kolkata
India
Published: Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 8:10 [IST]
Kolkata, Mar 09: Nine persons including four fire fighters, one Railway Protection Personnel, an unidentified person and an assistant sub inspector of the Kolkata police have been killed after fighting a massive blaze at a high rise building that houses offices of the Eastern Railway in Kolkata.
Officials said late on Monday night that two more bodies were fond inside a second elevator. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on reaching the spot said that the Police Commissioner had told her that two more people are missing and may have died.