E-Paper
4 dead in Lucknow hotel fire, authorities order demolition
Hours after four people were killed in a major fire that broke out in a hotel in Lucknow, authorities on Monday issued orders for demolition of the three-storey building after following the “due process” even as police arrested two owners and a manager of the hotel.
Lucknow: Hours after four people were killed in a major fire that broke out in a hotel in Lucknow, authorities on Monday issued orders for demolition of the three-storey building after following the “due process” even as police arrested two owners and a manager of the hotel.
At least 24 people were rescued from the premises of the Levana Suites on Madan Mohan Malviya Marg in Lucknow’s commercial centre Hazratganj, and eight of them were admitted at Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Hospital, police said.
“The deceased have been identified as Gurnoor Singh Anand (28), a resident of Naka Hindola, Sahiba Kaur alias Jaspreet (26), a resident of Ganeshganj, Shravika Singh (30), a resident of Indiranagar, and Aman Ghazi alias Bobby (35), a resident of Khurramnagar,” the Lucknow district administration said in a statement.
The four dead were all Lucknow residents and their families have been informed about the incident, said additional deputy commissioner of police (central) Rajesh Srivastava. “The hotel was sealed for forensic examination after confirmation that nobody was left inside.”
Later in the day, Lucknow police arrested the owners of the hotel — Rahul and Rohit Agarwal — along with the hotel manager, Sagar Srivastava. “The process for registration of an FIR for violations of fire safety norms is underway and it will be followed by the arrest of the trio,” joint commissioner of police (law and order) Piyush Mordiya told reporters earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, Lucknow divisional commissioner Roshan Jacob said the zonal officer had on May 7 sent a notice to the hotel, to which they replied on May 12, and presented the renewal (certificate) of the fire NOC (no objection certificate) from 2021 to 2024.
“Prima facie, despite the lack of fire escape management system, and iron grilles on the facade, how fire NOC was given is a matter of investigation,” Jacob, who is also the chairman of Lucknow Development Authority (LDA), said in an order.
“The owners did not provide any map of the building approved as a hotel to the LDA. A notice was issued by the zonal officer on May 26, and another on August 28 as no reply was given,” Jacob said in the order. “In this regard, the hotel be immediately sealed as per law and then be demolished.”
The divisional commissioner further said that effective disciplinary action should be ensured against the officials who were involved in making the hotel functional without its map being passed. Effective implementation of similar notices sent to other hotels should be done, she added.
“And if the hotel owners do not furnish any reply despite the notices, those hotels will be sealed,” the divisional commissioner said.
Earlier in the day, chief minister Yogi Adityanath visited the injured in hospital, and ordered an investigation by divisional commissioner Roshan Jacob and commissioner of police SB Shiradkar into the incident. Soon after, principal secretary (home) Sanjay Prasad issued an order in this regard and the two-member committee to submit a report at the earliest.
The panel comprising divisional commissioner and commissioner of police visited the hotel to examine the rescue operation.
The blaze was so intense that 15 fire tenders and a team of around 30 firefighters took over five hours to douse the flames, officials said. Four firefighters were rushed to the hospital after they suffered suffocation due to the smoke inside the hotel.
The rescue teams also used bulldozers to break a wall on the first floor to help in the fire-fighting operation, officials said. Teams of both the national and state disaster relief forces were also pressed for the rescue operation.
“According to the hotel owner, there are 30 rooms in the building and 18 were occupied at the time of the incident. The fire could have been caused by a short circuit and the exact cause is being ascertained,” said district magistrate Suryapal Gangwar. “The hotel owner told us that there is a banquet on the first floor where something happened.”
Another senior official also said primary investigation points at short-circuit behind fire, however detailed probe is underway.
One of the survivors, Ansh Kaushik, who was staying at the hotel, said it was around 7.30am when he noticed smoke in his room.
“I managed to escape by removing the window pane. I came down via the ladder put up by fire fighters to rescue us,” said Kaushik, an employee of a private company in Noida who was in Lucknow for some official work.
Among the deceased were a couple Anand and Sahiba, who were supposed to get married in December.
Though aggrieved families of the deceased outside the civil hospital refused to talk to reporters, a person close to the family of the deceased couple said they had gone to celebrate a friend’s birthday party and stayed there for the night. The duo were also planning to travel to Delhi for their wedding shopping, the person added, requesting anonymity.
“They were engaged in January. Anand was an event planner and ran an event management company in Lucknow,” he said. “Sahiba was a social media content creator and a make-up artist based in Lucknow and she had nearly 5,000 followers on her Instagram page.”
Defence minister and Lucknow MP Rajnath Singh tweeted: “My office is in touch with the local administration and collected details about the incident. Rescue efforts are underway. I pray for speeding recovery of injured people.”
Deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak, who visited the hotel to take stock of the rescue operation, said stern action would be taken against those responsible for the incident. “We will also see that there is no recurrence of such incidents. And for this, directives will be issued for the entire state,” he said.
According to a statement by the district magistrate’s office, two guests at the hotel — Naina Tewari and Ujjwal Mishra — were reported missing after the incident. Officials said the district administration tried to enquire about them from the contact numbers and last-dialed calls of their mobile phones, but in vain.
Later in the evening, JCP Piyush Mordiya told reporters that in all likelihood, the duo would have escaped from the rear side exit of the hotel, adding there was a little chance of anybody being left behind in the hotel. “Police are trying to track their locations through electronic surveillance,” he added.
