An iron object resembling the barrel of a cannon is being excavated at the intersection of Fairlie Place and Strand Road since last week.
By Tuesday evening, a team comprising members from the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC), CESC, with the help of a dozen labourers, managed to dig till eight feet below the surface of the pavement.
The dig had started on May 4 but had to be suspended after the team reached a depth of four feet and found the iron object had a maze of electrical wires around it.
Since the excavation spot is close to the Eastern Railway headquarters, built in 1883, a team of railway engineers visited the site to see if the operations could cause any damage to the heritage building.
The dig is being supervised by Biplab Roy, the administrator general and official trustee of Bengal and Amitabha Karkun, a war history and firearm enthusiast.
“The railway engineers who had inspected the spot have given us the go-ahead,” Roy told Metro on Tuesday.
“We had already received a verbal clearance from the railways on May 4 but we wanted a formal clearance that we received on Monday. However, we could not bring out the cannon today as it still has some cables near it. We are hopeful of getting it out with cranes on Wednesday,” said Roy.
The headquarters of the Eastern Railway at Fairlie Place is a heritage building where the railways established its permanent head office in 1879 and a booking office started functioning from 1800.
A spokesperson for the Eastern Railways told The Telegraph on Tuesday that they had sent a letter to the CMC citing their concerns about the excavation. “The letter sent by us expressed our concerns that such an excavation could cause structural damage to the building and can even result in a partial collapse of the building,” he said.
A senior official of the KMC said that the site where the excavation is being done is underneath a pavement and not inside the railway headquarters at Fairlie Place.
“We are closely monitoring the dig. Our engineers have checked the distance and according to their findings it will not result in any damage and doesn’t pose any plausible threat to the structure,” said the official.
According to Karkun, it is likely that the object resembling the barrel of a cannon is a 24-pounder-long gun that could fire shots weighing 24pounds at distances ranging from 700-1200 yards depending on the amount of gunpowder used and the elevation of the barrel.
Such cannons weigh in excess of 2000kg at least, Karkun said.
Roy said that he has requisitioned two cranes that will be able to pull out the structure safely.
A senior official of the power utility CESC at the dig site told The Telegraph on Tuesday that this was a complex operation as there was a high-tension underground power line and multiple other live electrical wires that had been moved to one side so that the cannon could be brought out safely.
“We managed to shift the lines but also had to be careful that there were no power outages in the area. In order to do so we had to give backup using other electrical supply lines in the area,” the official said.
Family held at border
Siliguri: Troops of the 15th battalion of the BSF posted at the Pathanpara border outpost on the India-Bangladesh border in Jalpaiguri district apprehended a Bangladeshi family on Tuesday for allegedly trying to enter India.
Md Belayen Hossain, a resident of Madaripur, his wife and their minor son were caught around 4.10am. A probe revealed they crossed the border illegally to try and get jobs in India. They were handed over to Kotwali police station.