The charred bodies of four employees, including the assistant manager of the vest manufacturing unit here which caught fire early on Thursday, were brought out by firefighters on Saturday.

The four had desperately tried to save themselves from the blaze by fleeing to the rooftop of the three-storey building located in the Bilkanda-Sajirhat area of New Barrackpore. Unfortunately, the door was locked and all of them reportedly suffocated to death on the staircase.

On Saturday morning, fire-fighters recovered the bodies from the staircase that connects to the rooftop of the building, after the fire was partially brought under control after 60 hours of efforts. The bodies, sources said, could not be immediately recognised by their families.

The four victims were identified as Swarup Ghosh, 42, Subrata Ghosh, 35, Amit Sen, 32 and Tanmoy Ghosh, 23, who were residents of Nadia. Their bodies were handed over to New Barrackpore police, and were later sent to the College of Medicine and Sagar Dutta Hospital for autopsy.

Sources said that even as of Saturday evening, portions of the fire continued to burn. Police and fire service sources claimed the existence of “pocket fires” while fire-fighters divided their efforts throughout the premises.

Around 10.30am on Saturday, a team of PWD engineers examined the condition of the building before allowing firefighters to enter inside. Some walls of the top floor were demolished for an aerial view when police needed to use a drone camera to identify the pocket fires, and then located the charred bodies on the staircase.

Police also began a probe based on two complaints lodged against the owners of the vest company by the fire services department and the family of deceased assistant manager Tanmoy Ghosh. The owner remains absconding.

Commissioner of Barrackpore police Manoj Verma said: “We have started a case against the owner of the vest company and are trying to locate its owner. The fire, however, could not be brought under control completely as pocket fires have been spotted on the premises .”

Local MP Sougata Roy said that families of each victim had been handed a cheque of Rs 2 lakh as compensation by the state government “We will try to ensure payment of their dues like PF as early as possible”, he said.

The fire broke out at the Nabadurga Textiles — a vest manufacturing company on the Bilkanda-Sajirhat industrial zone of New Barrackpore — around 3am on May 27. The fire spread fast and engulfed the godown of a prominent medicine retail chain housed on the two upper floors of the same building.

The fire department engaged 14 fire tenders and two robot fire-fighters to douse the blaze. Nevertheless, the blaze could not be brought under control until the early hours of Saturday. Four employees of the vest company were trapped inside the building, which was reportedly full of inflammable items like petroleum gas cylinders, petroleum-based products, chemicals used for colour dying and ethanol-based sanitizers, as well as raw materials for vests that made the task difficult for fire-fighters.