Park Street fire throws up heroes

KOLKATA - Amid the devastation and the loss of lives, the fire at the Stephen Court building here has also thrown up heroes who staked their lives to save fellow beings, whom they did not even know personally.

The milk of human kindness prompted Pervez Akhtar, a car driver, to enter the towering inferno on Park Street and join the rescue effort.

“He had no connection with Stephen Court. But my son is like this only,” said Akhtar’s mother Rashida Khatun.

After bringing several tapped people to safety, Akhtar became unconscious, unable to withstand the heat and the fumes, and is now admitted in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a city hospital.

Raju Mallik, a porter, is another samaritan.

“We could save all those people who had come on the edge of the balconies. But we could not help those, who could not come to the edge,” said Mallik, a daily wage earner.

Mallik had not made any money Tuesday, but that was not an issue for him. “I had to do this. Otherwise more people would have died,” he said.

But he has only one regret. “I wish I had come a bit earlier. Then I could have saved more lives.”