Home Secy seeks report on 'conspiracy' to set Writers' on fire

In an embarrassment for the Mamata Banerjee administration, a top Home Department official today gave a clean chit to a man who has been arrested on suspicion of conspiring to burn State Secretariat Writers' Buildings, vacated recently for repair, even as the Home Secretary asked for a departmental enquiry report on the incident.
"The arrested person Jyotirmoy Nandi has no malice or bad intention. He has been carrying out a routine pest control exercise for which he has been contracted by the Home Department. I even told the police this as they were interrogating him," Bismay Roy, Registrar of Publications, Home Department, told reporters here.

"He has been doing the job for the past few years," he said.
Meanwhile, state Home Secretary Basudeb Banerjee today asked Joint Secretary of his department Debashis Guha Thakurta to submit a report of the departmental inquiry on the alleged conspiracy to set Writers' Buildings on fire.
Roy was summoned by Banerjee today at the relocated State Secretariat 'Nabanna'.
"I know him since long. Copy of the contract agreement regarding appointment of Nandi for pest control at Writers' Buildings is with me. That day he did not have a gate pass to enter the Buildings and that is why an employee of my department accompanied him. He can't do anything wrong. Kerosene is used for pest control and there is nothing new in it," Roy said.