No short circuit caused fire at MP Nusrat Tabassum’s house

The Kushtia Palli Bidyut Samity has said that a short circuit in the electrical system did not cause the fire at the village home of Nusrat Tabassum, a reserved women’s seat MP and leader of the National Citizen Party (NCP), in Daulatpur upazila of Kushtia.

Mohammad Tozammel Haque, assistant general manager (operations) of the Kushtia Palli Bidyut office, disclosed the information to journalists on Friday (November 13) after inspecting the site and examining the recovered electrical equipment.

He said a call was made to the Palli Bidyut complaint center at 12:18 am on November 12, reporting a fire at the lawmaker’s house. Immediately after receiving the report, the electricity supply to the area was disconnected following instructions to the employee in charge of the substation.

Later, two Palli Bidyut line workers went to the scene and secured the power lines. They also recovered the meter and electrical wires from the damaged building. An examination found that the wire connected to the meter was intact. Although the meter’s outer plastic cover had burned, its internal circuit remained undamaged.

“The fuse installed in the main switch’s cutout has an estimated capacity of three amperes. In the event of a short circuit, the fuse should blow due to excessive current flow. At the same time, the service drop wire of the electricity supply line or the transformer fuse could also be damaged. However, none of these components was damaged at the scene. The service drop wire remained intact and the transformer fuse had not blown,” Tozammel Haque said.

Based on the recovered evidence and an on-site inspection, the Palli Bidyut official said, “There was no incident of fire caused by a short circuit in the electricity supply line.”

Home minister says short circuit could have caused fire in parliament

Earlier, Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed said in Parliament on Thursday that the fire at Nusrat Tabassum’s ancestral home could have originated from a short circuit caused by defects in the old electricity supply system. He also said the preliminary investigation found no evidence of a petrol bomb.

The home minister presented the preliminary investigation findings during a discussion and uproar in Parliament on Thursday over the fire at the house late Wednesday night. He said Nusrat’s ancestral home was abandoned and its electricity supply system was very old. As a result, a short circuit could have caused the fire.

On the other hand, Nusrat Tabassum claimed that petrol bombs had been thrown at her ancestral home, setting it on fire. NCP leaders also blamed the Awami League for the incident.