Committee to probe fire at CM residence

Kohima, Feb 9 (PTI) An emergency meeting of Nagaland cabinet today decided to set up an inquiry committee to find out the cause of fire in chief minister Neiphiu Rio's official residence last evening and to fix responsibilities. Chief Secretary Lalthara in a release said the Cabinet meeting expressed sympathy as well as solidarity with the chief minister and members of his family in this hour of our collective loss and decided to set up an inquiry committee to find out the cause of fire, to fix responsibilities and to suggest ways and means to avoid recurrence of such incidents in future. The meeting also expressed gratitude to the Almighty God for saving the lives of the chief minister and his family, and to the fire service department volunteers who had fought the raging fire and ultimately brought it under control, thereby saving the office complex having all the governments documents inside. The chief secretary said since the office portion of the building was not affected the chief minister would continue to function from the same premises as usual. Press secretary to chief minister Abu Metha said Rio and wife and son shifted to their private residence at Kohima village last night and would stay there till alternative arrangement was made. Earlier, the chief minister told newsmen that the fire originated from the ceiling of his living room due to short circuit and immediately engulfed the residential portion of the building. Although fire tenders arrived on time, the whole incident was very unfortunate, he regretted. Rio said that most the residences of ministers and secretaries in the town were quite old and beyond repairing, insisting that all those required reconstruction and modernisation, but the state government did have resources to do so. The chief minister thanked all the people concerned, especially the fire-brigade, for their supervision and timely help.