Jharkhand school education and literacy department has constituted a technical committee to probe into the fire at one of the classrooms of state-owned Ranchi Zila School in Ranchi on Thursday.

The school is one of the oldest school in Jharkhand’s capital.

School education and literacy department secretary K. Ravikumar said a technical committee has been asked to submit a detailed report on the cause of the mishap and steps to be taken to prevent such incidents.

Smoke in a classroom of Ranchi Zila School on Thursday. Manob Chowdhury

“We have constituted a technical team to probe in detail into the reason for the fire incident and also let us know preventive steps.

“Fortunately, officials noticed the fire and the fire tenders arrived quickly to douse the flames and no one was injured,” said Ravikumar.

The secretary also informed that prima facie it appears that fire caught in the false ceilings due to the short circuit in the old building of the school.

Sources in the school informed that fire was noticed by the students of Class VI and the teachers were alerted at around 9am.

All the students (nearly 30) were taken outside while the authorities immediately informed the fire department.

Two fire tenders reached within a few minutes to douse the flames and finally, the fire was doused at around 10am.

The school staff removed the benches, desks, computers, batteries etc. present in these rooms.

Incidentally, Ranchi Zila School was amongst the oldest schools in Ranchi and was recently made a model school under the chief minister’s school of excellence project with new buildings and state-of-the-art infrastructure created on the premises.

The incident happened in the old building.