Kolkata hotel fire: Show-cause notices slapped on 17 more hotels in Mirza Ghalib Street area

Kolkata: The West Bengal Fire Services Department on Friday slapped show-cause notices on authorities of 17 other hotels in and around the congested Mirza Ghalib Street in Central Kolkata for allegedly not maintaining adequate fire safety facilities at the entities.

Earlier, on Thursday, the state Fire Services Department had slapped similar show-cause notices on the authorities of nine other hotels and guest houses in the same area. So, in total show-cause notices have been slapped on authorities of 26 hotels and guest houses in and around the area.

The authorities of all the 17 hotels who have been served with show-cause notices on Friday have been asked to reply to the notices within the next 24 hours, failing which, the authorities might even order shutting down of the establishments.

The action on part of the state Fire Services Department comes amid a fire at Shikha Inn at one of the buildings in the Mirza Ghalib Street area on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday, in which a total of nine people, including seven Bangladeshi residents, were killed.

The nine killed included six males, two women and one child. All of them died mainly out of smoke-related suffocation, rather than burn injuries.

Meanwhile, although the leaseholder of Shikha Inn, Abu Zafar, was arrested by police on Thursday, the original owner of the said hotel, Bireshwar Mitra is still absconding. Zafar was presented at a city court on Thursday afternoon and he was remanded to police custody till September 2.

It is learnt that Zafar took the hotel on lease from Mitra against a monthly payment arrangement of Rs 40,000.

The BJP has blamed the previous Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool government of negligence in the Mirza Ghalib Street fire incident.

Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari and the state Municipal Affairs & Urban Development Minister, Agnimitra Paul, have questioned how all these hotels got trade licences without minimum provisions.

The five-storey building on Mirza Ghalib Street, where the fire broke out, housed multiple hotels and guesthouses, with each having shacks. Shikha Inn was on the third floor of the same building, covering an area of ​​1,100 square feet.

The West Bengal government has announced a detailed special audit of all hotels, lodges and guesthouses in the Mirza Ghalib Street area following the incident.

The New Market Police Station, under whose jurisdiction the building falls, has registered a suo motu case. The state Fire Services Department has also lodged a separate complaint.

IANS