Admin records gutted in major fire at ED office, doused after 12 hours

No casualties were reported; files of some sensitive cases may have been damaged in the fire, fear ED officials

- Linah Baliga and Abhishek Sharan

MUMBAI: A major fire broke out at the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office at Kaiser-I-Hind building in Ballard Estate in the early hours on Sunday. The fire was reported to the Mumbai Fire Brigade (MFB) at 2:30 am and was doused nearly twelve hours later, around 2 pm on Sunday. Though no casualties were reported, furniture, computers and documents stored in the office were destroyed in the blaze, fire brigade officials and ED officials told Hindustan Times.

"A preliminary assessment is underway to ascertain if the fire destroyed important documents, records and storage devices linked to cases under investigation," said an ED official. "But as per our estimate, the damage is likely to be limited as the affected floor was used mostly to store documents pertaining to administrative affairs. It did not house the server on which case records are stored."