Ahmedabad: In a big decision, the Gujarat crime branch on Wednesday have filed fresh FIRs against operators of eight game zones, which were operating without any NOC and required licenses, days after the High Court came down heavily on the state government and Rajkot local body officials. The accused owners of all these gaming zones are absconding at present, according to our sources. The game zones under the police scanner are World of Wonder, Bombay Super Mall and Play Point, Crystal Mall and Knock Out Game Zone, Game Zone, Cosmoplex Cinema and Infinity Game Zone, which are all located in Rajkot's Kalavad Road. The other gaming zones include Fun Blast Entertainment, LLV Game Zone, Kataria Chowkdi, Vupi World Game Zone, Parsana Chowk, 150 ft Ring Road and Krishna Water Park, Kuvadva- Ahmedabad Highway

This development comes a day after the Gujarat government instructed all police commissioners and district police chiefs to file FIRs against owners of illegal game zones across the state, days after the Rajkot fire tragedy claimed 28 lives. The instruction was given in a meeting led by the minister of state for home Harsh Sanghvi and chief minister Bhupendra Patel.

Keeping in view the seriousness of the fire incident in TRP game zone at Rajkot, the state director general of police Vikas Sahay, along with senior police officers and officers of the home department, were also present in the high-level meeting.

As part of vigilance to ensure that this type of tragedy never repeats in the future, effective strict action instructions have been issued, including special checking at such places across the state.

All police commissioners of the state and all district police chiefs have been instructed to check illegal game zones.  Not only that, an FIR must be been filed against the owners of those game zones which do not obtain NOC and required license, sources, privy to the meeting, revealed.

The Rajkot fire tragedy has laid bare several glaring lapses, including no fire exits, lot of inflammable substances in the storage and hazardous activities like welding during business hours. Earlier, the High Court said that it has lost all faith in the state government machinery.

After the court was informed that two gaming zones in the city were operating without any fire safety certificates, the High Court asked the Rajkot municipal body, "Are we to assume you turned a blind eye?"

The HC was left flabbergasted when it was informed that the gaming zone obtained a license from the local police last year and it was renewed again. Pulling up the local body, the court said, "Who were these officers? Did they go there to play?"

After the HC rap over glaring irregularities, the state government transferred police commissioner Raju Bhargava, along with the additional commissioner of police (administratin, traffic and crime) Vidhi Choudhary and DCP Zone 2 Sudhirkumar J Desai.