The puja committee of Salt Lake’s FD Block whose pandal and idols were destroyed in a fire on Wednesday has lodged a complaint with Bidhannagar South police station alleging arson.

A member of the FD Block Sarbojanin Durgotsav Committee said they lodged the complaint as they felt somebody had started the fire deliberately.

“We have demanded a thorough probe… we strongly believe someone set fire to our pandal. There are people in this block who are trying to seize control of the puja… since they have failed they decided to do this,” Banibrata Banerjee, the president of this year’s puja committee, said.

A group of residents of the block have been trying for the past couple of years to take over the puja committee, he said. “These people wanted to undermine our capabilities and when all else failed they started a fire. A short circuit could not have triggered the fire as the decorators had snapped the main electric line on Tuesday night.”

An officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said cops had spoken to the guards and dhakis and recorded their statements.

Police are going through footage of the CCTV camera installed on top of the FD Block community centre to ascertain the sequence of events.

“So far we haven’t found anything to suggest someone started the fire,” an officer said.

Most of the people cops have spoken to have said they tried to douse the flames with buckets of water the moment they saw the pandal on fire.

“They could not do much as the flames spread rapidly throughout the pandal,” the officer said.

Another officer of the commissionerate said the police were still to receive the forensic test report. The report might give an idea what triggered the fire, the officer said.

The police have started a case under various IPC sections, including 435 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to cause damage).

“We have collected the charred remnants of a meter box and some cables from near the pandal. We are examining them to understand if a short circuit had triggered the fire,” a state forensic sciences laboratory official said.

An official of the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd said organisers had asked for electricity supply till Wednesday evening.

The committee had planned to immerse the idols on Wednesday evening.

On Thursday, the entire ground was cleared of the remaining installations of animals, trees and caves.