Kolkata: Fire guts Presidency University's server room

According to reports, the fire was first seen at around 1:30 pm. inside central library's computer server room on the ground floor of university building.

As many as five fire tender engines rushed to the spot and firemen fought for an hour to douse the blaze.

A Presidency University staffer said that several computers in the server room and few books in the library had been gutted due to the fire, while university's registrar Debajyoti Konar claimed no main resource was damaged in the incident.

"As we provide basic fire-extinguishing training to all our staffers, they took part in the operation with firemen and brought the blaze under control very soon," Konar said.

"A new project will be commenced very soon, after which our university will have permanent fire-extinguishing solution," he added.

No casualty has been reported so far in the incident, while the cooling off process is currently underway.

Director General of West Bengal Fire and Emergency Services, Sanjay Mujherjee, told IBNS: "The fire started around 1:30 pm. Five fire tender engines went to the scene and brought the blaze under control."

The university has ordered an internal probe into the incident, an official said.

Fire department has begun investigation into the matter to know the exact reason behind the fire.

"Possible source of the fire was computer server room and the particular reason behind the incident will be known after investigation," Kamal Kumar Nandi, Divisional Fire officer of North Kolkata told IBNS.

Few years earlier, the historic Baker lab at Presidency University (then Presidency College) was completely gutted due to massive fire.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)