It’s a topsy-turvy world inside J-420 of Azhar Molla Bagan, where G+2 becomes G+4 and façade houses washrooms
Times of India | 22 March 2024
Kolkata: The façade of the five-storey “Matchbox Burj Khalifa” that went viral on the internet is actually the washroom block from the first to the top floor, a spot visit by TOI revealed on Thursday.
An internet sensation since the collapse of an illegal building in the neighbourhood, the L-shaped J-420, Azhar Molla Bagan address actually houses seven flats with the bigger flats comprising four bedrooms, a living area, a kitchen and a narrow toilet spread across 800 sqft (carpet area). The toilet is squeezed in the narrow elongated portion at the rear and is wedged between two wider buildings facing Fatehpur Village Road.
While residents claim they had proper permission to erect the building at the spot some 10 years ago, they admitted to a “few alterations”, including extending a portion in the narrow plot between the two buildings to house the washrooms and constructing two additional floors atop the sanctioned G+2 structure. “Who doesn’t make a few alterations in buildings in this part of the city? Take a look at other buildings. The violations are worse than ours. People are after us just because of the elongated portion which we had extended to house washrooms. What harm have we done? That area was being wasted and had become a mosquito-breeding zone because of an open drain,” said building owner Sanowar Ali.
His uncle admitted they added two floors to house more members of their large family in separate flats.
Ali said his father, late Md Ali, owned the plot between the two buildings. Construction started in 2014 and, while promoter Parvez Akhtar was constructing the building, we decided to extend it to the empty space between two neighbouring buildings to carve out toilets on each floor. The cousin who was allotted the ground floor flat made a shop in that portion while others opted for washrooms as it was easier to fix the sewage lines to the pit below.
The building has now become meme material with people calling it ‘Garden Reacher Kanchan Mullick’, ‘Katrina Kaif’ and ‘Matchbox Burj Khalifa’.
TOI spoke with the building’s residents sitting in a decent-sized hall on the fourth floor’s 850 sqft flat. The family took the reporter on a tour of the flat and displayed a KMC property tax receipt they had paid in 2022. The wider portion of the flat was at least 25 ft wide and there were four bedrooms, including a covered balcony that was transformed into a room.
“Ours is a solid structure. But suddenly people are questioning us about all sorts of things. Even KMC officials questioned the legalities and took measurements of the house. We have nothing to hide. We showed them everything,” said Md Sarfraz, Ali’s son.
Mayor Firhad Hakim said: “How can I know about the building.” But a KMC official said they are scanning the records of the building at the local borough office. “We are examining if this building has proper sanction from the local KMC office. Prima facie evidence indicates it was constructed illegally, considering the width of the road,” said the official.