Fire At Madanpalle Office Is Man-made : AP DGP

On Sunday mid-night, a section of the sub-collector office of Madanpalle in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh was gutted in a fire accident. Numerous important files and computers in the rooms where the lands records of all assembly constituencies, including Madanapalle, Tamballapalle, Pileru, Punganuru and Palamaneru in the district were stored got destroyed in this mishap.

The manner in which the incident took place raised so many doubts and the Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu immediately directed the state DGP and the CID chief to make a preliminary enquiry and submit a report shortly. Accordingly, both the officers visited the sub-collector office a while ago after taking a special chopper.

After reaching the spot and making necessary inspections, DGP Dwaraka Tirumala Rao suspects that the fire accident is a man-made disaster with a malafide intention to destroy the files. He said that the fire occured only in the important sections where 22A land records of the entire division were stored.

The DGP further said that the district collector wasn’t informed of the fire accident by the RDO. Neither the SP and DSO were also not appraised of the incident by the local SI. Surprisingly, the fire tender arrived very late to the sub-collector’s office, though fire station is very near to it.

Ruling out the chance of short-circuit based on the repor submitted by the forensic department, the DGP said that a high-profile 10 member committee would be set-up to enquire into the incident.

Interestingly, the incident occurred shortly before the arrival of the new Sub-Collector Megha Swaroop who was scheduled to assume duties on Monday. Over the past five years, during the YSRCP government, allegations of unauthorized land acquisitions and allocations have emerged several times.