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By:

Prithvi Asthana

20 August 2025 at 5:20:30 pm

Employee says the fire alarm did not go off

Many officials could not use fire extinguishers Mumbai: In a tragic incident a large fire broke out in the basement of Aaykar Bhavan, the Income Tax office located on Maharshi Karve Road at Churchgate in Mumbai on Monday. According to the sources, the fire broke out at 1:30 pm, but the Mumbai Fire Brigade received the initial call at 2:01 pm and officially declared it as Level-I fire around 2:15 pm. No casualties were reported in the incident and all the employees were rescued from the...

Employee says the fire alarm did not go off

Many officials could not use fire extinguishers Mumbai: In a tragic incident a large fire broke out in the basement of Aaykar Bhavan, the Income Tax office located on Maharshi Karve Road at Churchgate in Mumbai on Monday. According to the sources, the fire broke out at 1:30 pm, but the Mumbai Fire Brigade received the initial call at 2:01 pm and officially declared it as Level-I fire around 2:15 pm. No casualties were reported in the incident and all the employees were rescued from the building. As the building has a centralised air conditioning system and all the windows were closed the smoke from the fire spread rapidly throughout the building. The thick smoke also spread to the surrounding areas pf the building. Around 23 vehicles of the Mumbai Fire Brigade (MFB) were engaged under the intense operation to extinguish the fire from different gates at the building. Backup ambulances police officials, and the BEST staff, were also seen at the site. The MFB deployed a DFO, ADFO, three Senior Station Officers and two Station Officers, along with three fire engines, one CFF, three jet units, one AWTT, one MWT, one WQRV, one TTL and one ALP. Specialised equipment including aerial ladder platform was deployed to evacuate people from the upper floors. Two people, a male and a female were rescued from the Guest House at the seventh floor of the building. Firefighters were successful in rescuing the staff on the lower floors as well. According to an employee, who requested anonymity said, “The fire broke out at 1:30 pm when the staff was having lunch, but the fire alarms did not go off.” “We were not allowed to exit from the main gate,” he added. The employee said, “The fire was confined to the basement and the smoke went up to all the floors of building.” Asked about the loss, the employee said, “As the fire broke out in the godown no person was injured. But the records kept in godown that are mostly old records have been burnt.” When asked about the fire drill protocol, the employee said, “The office staff did not know how to use the extinguishers, a possible reason why the fire’s intensity kept increasing.” Officials did not confirm the cause of the fire and or damage caused in the basement area. The Aaykar Bhavan, Income Tax office is multi-storey government building that serves as a workplace for a large number of Income Tax officials.

Clever seat selection helped BJP to secure historic win

The party won 65 seats against Congress, 37 against NCP (SP) and 29 against Shiv Sena (UBT)

Clever seat selection

Mumbai: The BJP’s strategic seat sharing with the allies has proved beneficial for the party. An analysis of the Assembly election results show that the BJP has scored over its main rival, the Congress, in a big way because of the direct fights.


The analysis shows that BJP defeated all three constituents of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) – Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP) – in the direct fights. This is attributed as one of the reasons for the BJP’s historic poll success.


The BJP contested 147 out of 288 seats. In 76 constituencies, it faced Congress. BJP secured victory in 65 seats and lost only 11 seats, making it a whopping 86 per cent of the total direct fights. This was followed by an even stronger performance against NCP (SP). Of the total 39 fights with Sharad Pawar’s party, BJP captured 37 seats making it 95 per cent of the total fights with NCP (SP). BJP and Shiv Sena (UBT) were head-to-head in 32 constituencies, of which BJP emerged victorious in 29 seats, making this 91 per cent of the total direct contests.


According to a BJP strategist the party had bargained hard with its allies, Shiv Sena and NCP to get the desired constituencies in the seat sharing formula. “We had studied to potential candidates of the MVA. That helped us in choosing the seats where we can register comfortable victories,” the strategist said.


BJP spokesperson Niranjan Shetty attributed the success to all the party workers who worked hard to boost development, infrastructure in the state. He gave credit to Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for his contribution to the party’s success.


Shetty pointed out that in 2019, Uddhav Thackeray had stalled all the “novel” and “legendary” projects that Fadnavis had started when he had taken over as CM, making it very easy for the people of Maharashtra to strike a comparison between both the leaders and the potential they had for serving the people. “Devendra Fadnavis gave up his post very easily for the larger good. There are many such examples like Venkaiah Naidu who was BJP National President and later worked as the Vice President of India because that was the need of the hour. We seldom care about our posts,” Shetty told The Perfect Voice.


Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe refused to call the election results as the people’s mandate. “This is not at all a Janata mandate. Despite Maharashtra struggling with so many basic social issues, how can BJP acquire such a huge mandate is the question. If a student copies and fails with just passing marks, it can go unnoticed, but if a student copies and bags the number one position, something is fishy. Why is the BJP scared of ballot papers?” he said.

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