"The forensic report says kerosene was the main cause of fire at the Gold Mohur mills, thereby raising several doubts regarding the blaze," chief fire officer Uday Tatkare said.
Forensic reports have indicated that kerosene fuelled the blaze at the defunct Gold Mohur textile mill at Dadar in Central Mumbai, a fire department official said today.
"The forensic report says kerosene was the main cause of fire at the Gold Mohur mills, thereby raising several doubts regarding the blaze in the defunct mill," chief fire officer Uday Tatkare said.
"We already had doubts over the actual cause of fire as the mill was non-operational," he said while presenting the forensic report before the standing committee of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM).
A major fire broke out in the mill on January 20.
Last month, Maharashtra home minister RR Patil had said the inspector-general of police would investigate all recent cases of fire in Mumbai's mills to ascertain if sabotage was involved.
"The nature of fire seems suspicious on various grounds like statements of eye-witnesses, circumstantial evidence, samples of debris which were given to the Kalina forensic laboratory for analysis, among others," Tatkare said.
"We will provide all the evidence that the department has to police and ensure that the culprits are booked," he added.
Members of the standing committee asked the civic body to take strict action against the culprits.
BJP corporator Ashish Shelar said, "With this report it has come to notice that the fire was lit purposely. We must ensure that strict action is taken against the culprits so that similar incidents do not occur again."
Echoing Shelar's sentiments, NCP corporator Niyaz Vanu said, "This seems to be a big fraud... lot of money is involved as the mill was going for revival and few people were against it."
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