India, May 1 -- The Link Square shopping complex that went up in flames in Bandra on Tuesday was a tinder box waiting to be lit. This damning preliminary finding comes from the Mumbai Fire Brigade a day after 72 fire fighters took 12 hours to contain the raging blaze and 22 hours to extinguish it.

"The fire-fighting system wasn't working, including the sprinklers," chief fire officer, Ravi Ambulgekar, told HT on Wednesday. An assistant divisional fire officer, who was at the site on Tuesday, added that the system was not working even though the shopping complex regularly submitted Form B, which shows evidence of a working system. "It is possible it was a manual system, which would have to be operated from the basement, but that wasn't ac...