Anandapur warehouse massacre: Bones recovered at fire site, toll still unclear
Telegraph | 30 January 2026
Work to dismantle the mangled iron structures of the two warehouses, where a fire killed more than a dozen employees on Monday morning, began on Thursday.
Police recovered body parts and sent them for post-mortem examination, bringing the total number of body exhibits found to 25. Five were recovered late on Wednesday night and four more on Thursday, officers said.
The exact death toll remains unclear, as the recovered body parts may not correspond to the number of victims. Several people are feared dead in the fire that engulfed the two warehouses on Nazirabad Road, off EM Bypass near Anandapur, early on Republic Day morning.
Several human bone fragments were visible at the site on Thursday as a payloader was deployed for debris clearing. Workers engaged by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation carried out the operation.
A forensic team said it could not collect samples on Thursday due to the ongoing clearing work.
Police officers said it could take several days to remove all debris before the final death toll can be determined.
Twenty-seven people have been reported missing.
The police have collected blood samples from relatives to carry out DNA testing to match with the recovered remains.
The gutted warehouses were occupied by a decorator agency and the fast-food chain, Wow Momo.
Relatives of two missing Wow Momo employees said that they were “getting a lot of support from the company”. The son of one of the employees and the wife of the
second spoke to reporters at the Wow Momo office on Thursday.
Dayamoy Halder, son of Basudeb Halder, said: “We have not received the bodies yet. The company staff have supported us all this time. They visited my home to talk to my mother and pledged full support, financial and otherwise.”
Mousumi Naskar, wife of Pankaj Halder, echoed his statement.
Dayamoy added that his father could not escape the inferno because the exit gate had been blocked by the decorator’s materials, while flames had engulfed the front gate.
Wow Momo has promised ₹10 lakh as a lump sum, monthly payments equivalent to the deceased’s salary for life, and educational expenses for the children of three staff members feared dead.
Officials from the fire department said neither warehouse had a valid fire licence or adequate firefighting measures. Based on the fire department’s complaint, the police have registered a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
The owner of the decorator agency, Gangadhar Das, is in police custody.