A devastating fire has razed a large slum cluster near Kolkata, leaving hundreds of families homeless and igniting a fierce political controversy. The blaze at Ghuni Basti in New Town's Eco Park area, North 24 Parganas district, occurred on the evening of Wednesday, December 17, 2025, completely gutting the settlement.
Scale of the Disaster and Immediate Response
The fire, which began on Wednesday evening, spread with alarming speed through the densely packed shanties constructed from highly flammable bamboo and tarpaulin sheets. Eyewitnesses reported that explosions from cooking gas cylinders in nearby huts further intensified the inferno. Twenty fire tenders were deployed to battle the flames, which ultimately destroyed over a hundred shanties.
While there were no reports of casualties, the human cost is immense. The local administration confirmed that at least 300 families lost all their belongings, including crucial identity and property documents. The affected residents have been moved to a relief camp.
On Thursday, December 19, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ordered a comprehensive probe into the causes and impact of the fire. She called State Fire Minister Sujit Bose to enquire about the situation. Senior district officials also inspected the site, located under the Rajarhat Jyangra-Hatiara 2 gram panchayat, and assured residents of all possible support.
"Our priority is to provide relief to the affected families," said Fire Minister Sujit Bose. The district administration has promised to expedite the replacement of lost documents like Aadhaar, ration, and voter ID cards. A forensic team is scheduled to examine the site to determine the cause of the fire.
Political Firestorm Erupts Over Electoral Roll Link
The tragedy quickly became a political flashpoint, with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leveling serious allegations against the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC). The controversy is directly linked to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state.
BJP's West Bengal co-in-charge, Amit Malviya, alleged that the fire was intentionally set. He claimed that data from the ASD (Absent, Shifted, Dead) list of six booths in Ghuni village raised questions, suggesting the blaze was a cover-up. Malviya alleged it was an "open secret" that people from Bangladesh had settled in the area and that many had left recently.
"To cover up these glaring omissions and facilitate their re-inclusion in the voter list, it is widely believed that the TMC orchestrated this fire," Malviya claimed. He argued the objective was to allow residents to claim they lost documents in the fire, enabling them to get fresh ones and falsely establish citizenship credentials.
TMC's Furious Rebuttal and Accusations
The TMC hit back strongly, dismissing the BJP's claims as "absolutely outrageous" and anti-Bengal. TMC state Vice-President Joyprakash Majumdar accused the BJP of playing politics with human suffering and crafting random narratives.
"Instead of showing solidarity with those affected by the fire, the BJP is expressing sadistic pleasure and giving it a political twist, maligning Bengal, defaming the TMC," Majumdar stated. He questioned whether the BJP itself could have been involved to shift blame and challenged Malviya's claims about Rohingya infiltrators not reflecting in the draft SIR list.
The Ghuni slum had been in the news since the SIR began, with unverified claims that a majority of its inhabitants were illegal infiltrators from Bangladesh and that the area had been largely emptied. The fire and the subsequent political blame game have now placed this settlement at the centre of a heated debate over citizenship and electoral integrity in West Bengal.
