A team from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s (KMC) buildings department began demolishing a six-storeyed building on MN Chatterjee Sarani in north Kolkata’s Narkeldanga on Saturday.
Calcutta High Court had ordered the demolition of the “unauthorised structure”.
The team comprising senior officials, labourers and police reached the building on 3D/H/7 MN Chatterjee Sarani around noon and asked for the keys to the makeshift door that leads to the stairs.
A local youth turned up with the keys within a few minutes.
Armed with a copy of the high court’s Friday order, the team took a flight of stairs to the building’s top where engineers first briefed the labourers about what had to be done and how to go about it.
Armed with mortised chisels and hammers, they began breaking down the concrete top of the floors before drilling holes into them through the mesh of iron rods and wires.
The diametres of the holes in the concrete surface were gradually increased after making an initial dent.
Senior KMC officials said the idea was to ensure the loosening of the concrete’s strength before pulling down the structure in a phased manner.
“Payloaders and bulldozers cannot be pressed into action for the demolition job since the area where the building stands is densely populated and there are several shops around the structure on the ground floor,” said a senior KMC official.
“This demolition work is a long-drawn process and we will resume it on Monday,” the official said.
Justice Amrita Sinha of Calcutta High Court had on Friday turned down an appeal for a stay on the court’s demolition order by one of the building’s residents.
“Who will save you if the building collapses? The demolition will begin on Saturday. The police will be present,” she said while rejecting the plea for a stay.
A senior officer of Narkeldanga police station said: “Since the entire structure stands vacated of its residents, we don’t expect much resistance. But even then, a roster for deployment at the demolition site has been drawn up so that the KMC officials feel secure and protected.”
A section of the residents of the locality said the building had been built in just six or seven months defying all norms laid down by the civic body.
“Work, like plastering the interior walls, was on till about a month and a half back,” said the owner of a shop on the ground floor of the building.
“We just hope this time the entire structure is pulled down and not left with just a few holes in the concrete slabs,” the shop owner said.
“In January, a KMC team arrived and damaged the two top floors of the building. Holes were made on the floors and some of the walls were pulled down,” he had said on Friday.