Kolkata police arrest hotel owner over deadly fire

Indian police on Saturday arrested the owner of the Shikha Inn Hotel in Kolkata in connection with last week’s fire incident that left nine hotel residents, including eight Bangladeshis dead.

Bireshwar Mitra, 46, was arrested from his home in Diamond Harbour Road, Behala in southern Kolkata, almost three days after the deadly fire outbreak, police said.

Following the disaster on early Wednesday, Bireshwar Mitra as well as the hotel’s leaseholder Abu Zafar fled their homes in Kolkata.

Police managed to arrest Abu Zafar before he could leave Kolkata for Uttar Pradesh state, but Bireshwar remained untraceable.

The hotel owner had allegedly fled to Dhanbad area in Jharkhand state, but returned to his Kolkata home on Saturday for unknown reasons.

Police promptly arrested Bireshwar upon receiving confidential information about his Kolkata re-entry.

There are allegations that the Shikha Inn Hotel is housed in a very old building that lacks adequate fire extinguishing mechanism and emergency exits.

During the fire incident, the front gate was also locked preventing hotel residents from taking a safe exit.

Earlier, around 2am on Wednesday, a fire broke out at the Shikha Inn Hotel leading to the deaths of nine individuals, including eight Bangladeshis. Most of the deaths was caused by suffocation rather than direct exposure to the fire as there was an acute crisis of exit points.