Diphu : A devastating fire gutted more than twenty commercial establishments including small shops of assorted category in the busy Sukanjan locality of Bokajan town on Monday evening around 4.30 pm. The place of incident is under the command of Bokajan police station.

Several observers who monitored the incident have to say that the fire broke out in the ground floor of a two-storey structure and swiftly engulfed several shops in its proximity. The intensity of the inferno was so severe that the shopkeeper hardly got any chance to pull out their merchandise.

Victims and onlookers called the Bokajan fire service and the local police, although the response of the fire tenders was quick but due to extreme desiccated weather condition the blaze was almost unstoppable. Several fire tenders fought for hours to stop further extent of fire. Exact cause of the fire and extent of loss is yet to be ascertained.

The charred business establishment includes a book store, tailor shop, watch & watch store, kitchen apparatus; jewelry store, shoe, Ayurvedic medicine store and electrical store. According to the victims, properties worth more than three crore have been engulfed by fire.