Blaze at Santoshpur station disrupts suburban train services and damage stalls
Telegraph | 17 September 2025The blaze, reported shortly after 7am, is suspected to have started from a cooking gas cylinder or a stove at one of the several makeshift stalls in the station compound.
The stalls are illegal encroachments, said a senior railway official.
The fire was first spotted at platform 1. It spread quickly and, by 7.30am, thick plumes of smoke billowing out were visible from a distance.
Initially, the stall owners, workers and residents tried dousing the flames with water.
Two tenders arrived at the spot after 30 minutes, and two more joined them later.
The flames were eventually doused in about two hours, said railway officials.
“There was no casualty. But around a dozen shops were gutted,” said a government railway police officer.
The blaze crippled suburban train movement between Sealdah and Budge Budge.
“The disruption began around 7.15am. Five Budge Budge locals had to be cancelled and a couple of other trains were delayed,” said an senior official of the Sealdah division.
The normal services between Sealdah and Budge Budge resumed a little after 9.30am, he said.
Some trains from Sealdah were terminated at Majerhat, the official said.
An official from Eastern Railway stated that unauthorised stalls located on station grounds and makeshift shelters along railway tracks pose potential risks to passengers.
A fire started from an unauthorised stall at Ghutiari Sharif station in South 24-Parganas and disrupted train services on the Canning line of the Sealdah South Suburban section on September 8 last year.
A fire at Mograhat station in South 24-Parganas crippled train services for nearly an hour in the Baruipur-Diamond Harbour line of the Sealdah south suburban section on March 31 this year.
