A portion of the roof of an old house collapsed in Baranagar on the city’s northern fringes on Tuesday night, killing the lone resident, a 55-year-old widow.
Suchitra Maity’s body lay trapped under the rubble for several hours till some masons reached the spot on Wednesday morning and pulled her out.
Suchitra’s daughter, Mithu Biswas, has alleged that the collapse could be an act of sabotage since a close relative had been insisting on handing over the old structure to a real estate developer for some time.
According to residents, the roof came crashing down around 10pm after what seemed like an explosion inside the house on TN Chatterjee Road — opposite Ananya bus stop on BT Road.
The explosion smashed glass windows of several adjoining houses.
Some of those who rushed to the house said they found the structures holding the roof were intact. Just the roof, made of lime and mortar, had collapsed.
The gas oven was damaged and the pipe carrying the gas had exploded, filling the air with the smell of LPG, they said.
A team of police officers rushed to the house with workers from the local municipal body but failed to make any headway through the heap of rubble at night.
The area was cordoned off and early morning a team of masons armed with crowbars were brought in before Suchitra was spotted. She was rushed to a hospital nearby where doctors declared her dead.
“It appears that the woman was possibly cooking and there was a gas leak. We have seized the gas cylinder, which has remained intact after the collapse,” said a senior officer of the Barrackpore police commissionerate. “A forensic test will ascertain the exact cause of the explosion.”
Forensic experts said a leak from an LPG cylinder can occasionally result in the formation of a cloud after the gas mixes with the air.
“If this cloud formation occurs in a small room, then its pressure can be higher than the atmospheric pressure outside. A small spark can result in an explosion,” said a senior forensic expert with the forensic science laboratory.
Police officers recalled a similar explosion inside a small room on the ground floor of a five-storied building in Kasba in 2018. The room was severely damaged.
In Baranagar, police said they would probe the sabotage angle based on the complaint lodged by the victim’s daughter.
“There could be a motive of handing over the house to a developer and hence this incident,” the daughter said standing close to the rubble.