At least fourteen shops were gutted and property worth more than Rs. 20 lakh destroyed in a massive fire which broke out in Borboha area under Hojai district in the wee hours of Sunday.

As per the report, the blaze erupted in one of the shops while everybody was asleep and spread to the neighbourhood rapidly.

Till the locals knew about the incident and woke up to launch firefighting efforts, at least fourteen houses had caught fire. The flames were brought under control only after fire fighter teams were called up but till then assets worth lakhs were gutted.

While no casualty was reported in the mishap, electronic goods, furniture along with some important documents were lost.

The cause of the fire is suspected to be electric short-circuit.