A hotel fire in Kolkata on Thursday early morning killed two people.
The fire occurred at the Golden Parkk hotel on Ho Chi Minh Sarani in central Kolkata at around 3 a.m. Police have arrested two hotel officials including the owner of the hotel over the incident. Owner of the hotel Bhupendra Singh Gujral and manager Gautam Majumder had been arrested in the evening after being detained and questioned for several hours.
The victims were two hotel guests, identified as Chamar Kishan (52) and Anup Agarwal (53), who succumbed to their injuries after being taken to SSKM hospital. Kishan and Agarwal hailed from Odisha and Gujarat, respectively and both were employees of Tata Steel. Two others have been admitted to the hospital and four had been discharged after treatment, from SSKM.
Fire officials said an initial investigation showed that the fire started in the kitchen on the first floor of the G+4 structure and spread on the floors above. 10 fire tenders including two skylifts were rushed to the scene.The fire was brought under control at approximately 6.30 am.
Witnesses said that boarders had broken glass walls and jumped out of the building. However, fire officials said that boarders had only jumped off the adjoining roof to save themselves.
Mayor of Kolkata Sovan Chatterjee, who arrived at the scene to inspect the situation said that the hotel lacked proper equipment in a fire emergency. “From what I have seen and even fire officials said that fire-fighting equipment did not work properly. The AC ducts should have been sealed properly but they aren’t,” he said.
The hotel is also reportedly in violation of several rules of the National Building Code. Officials allege the fire alarm, smoke detectors and sprinklers in the hotel did not work when the fire broke out. Fire officials are looking into whether there was any fire mock drill carried out at the hotel.
A forensic team collected samples from the site, while police begin an investigation. On the basis of a complaint by Somnath Pramanik, station officer of West Bengal Fire Services at the Shakespeare Sarani Police Station, a case has been lodged under sections 11J and 11L of WBFS Act and sections 304, 308, 338, 427 and 34 of the IPC, against the hotel owner and management staff of the hotel.
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 "Golden Parkk, Kolkata, West Bengal, fire, Ho Chi Minh Sarani, Odisha, Sovan Chatterjee")
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