5 Bangladeshis among 9 dead in Kolkata hotel fire on Mirza Ghalib St: Officials

Mirza Ghalib Street and its surrounding areas have numerous hotels that are frequented by Bangladeshi nationals

Five Bangladeshi nationals including a three-year-old boy and a Jharkhand resident were among nine people who died when a fire broke out around 2am on Wednesday at a hotel on the second floor of an old five-storey building on Kolkata’s 15H Mirza Ghalib Street, police and Bangladesh deputy high commission officials in Kolkata said.

Shikha Inn Hotel is among the several small hotels operating out of the same five-storey building. (AP Photo)

Four of the Bangladeshi nationals were identified as Debashish Dutta (4), a journalist from Kustia; his wife Afsana Shimmin (25), their three-year-old son Sharnashish Dutta; and the woman’s father Md Akram Ali (64).

Dutta, Bangladesh deputy high commission officials said, went to Bengaluru for medical treatment. The family checked into the hotel on Tuesday after returning from Bengaluru and was supposed to return to Bangladesh on Wednesday. Bangladeshi media reported that the only survivor in Dutta’s immediate family is his eight-year-old daughter, Pakhi, who did not come to India.

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The fifth Bangladeshi national has been identified as Ahmed Babu from Dhaka, Mohammad Khaled, deputy high commissioner of Bangladesh in Kolkata said.

Of the remaining four deceased persons, only 23-year-old Sandip Paswan, a Jharkhand resident, who worked at one of the hotels in the five-storey building could be identified by Wednesday afternoon.

Praween Prakash, deputy commissioner of police (central division), said three of the bodies could not be identified.

All the identified bodies were taken to the Kolkata police morgue for post-mortem examination.

Bangladesh deputy high commission in Kolkata also issued a statement that said people in Bangladesh should contact the high commission’s second secretary (political) Md Omar Faruk Akanda at the helpline number +918274821352.

“We have contacted the families of those who have died. Three people are yet to be identified. Arrangements are being made to take the bodies back to Bangladesh,” Md Omar Faruk Akanda said.

Shikha Inn Hotel is among the several small hotels operating out of the same five-storey building. The building stands around 50 metres from the West Bengal Fire and Emergency Services department headquarters at 13D Mirza Ghalib Street and within a kilometer of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the local New Market police station.

Mirza Ghalib Street and its surrounding areas have numerous hotels that are frequented by Bangladeshi nationals who come to India for medical treatment.

Four fire tenders reached the scene and controlled the blaze in two hours. The firefighters said thick smoke engulfed the third floor of the building.

“We rescued more than 60 persons who were unhurt but at least nine people were found unconscious. They were rushed to the hospital,” a fire officer said, requesting anonymity.

Amirul Hossain, a guest at the hotel, said “There was no fire alarm, no fire exit and firefighting system. It was a miracle that we managed to escape.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also offered his condolences to the affected families. “Extremely pained to learn about the loss of lives due to a fire mishap in Kolkata. My condolences to those who have lost their loved ones in this tragedy. May the injured recover at the earliest. The local administration is assisting those who are affected,” PM Modi wrote on X.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ministers questioned how the Trinamool Congress government allowed such hotels to operate.

Chief minister Suvendu Adhikari on X wrote: “This tragedy is a grim reminder of the legacy of negligence left behind by the previous regime. For years, the city’s and state’s infrastructure was allowed to grow unchecked, with structures being permitted to be built and operate as hotels and other businesses while completely ignoring mandatory fire safety norms.”

“The previous administration systematically looked the other way, failing to enforce basic compliance audits and allowing these unsafe conditions to fester,” he added and formed a five-member special investigation team (SIT) to conduct an inquiry.

Bengal municipal affairs minister Agnimitra Paul targeted her predecessor Firhad Hakim, who was also Kolkata’s mayor during the TMC regime. “Who was responsible for renewing the trade licences of the affected hotel and the others like it? What was the role of my predecessor? Were these hotels ever inspected?” Paul said.

Hakim said Paul was politicising the issue.

“This is politics. It is public knowledge that trade licence applications are processed online these days. Those getting it do not have the right to violate rules. During our tenure so many people died in devastating fires in Kolkata. We always swung into action but never blamed the erstwhile Left Front government,” Hakim said.

This is the second such incident in West Bengal within 48 hours. A fire in a hotel at Tarapith, a temple town in West Bengal’s Birbhum district, killed nine people, including two children, on Monday.

In both incidents, the investigation revealed glaring gaps in safety measures, including a lack of fire extinguishers, emergency water lines and dedicated fire exits.

Abhay Chaudhury, a Birbhum fire department officer, was suspended on Tuesday after the ongoing inquiry revealed that a fire safety clearance certificate was issued to the Tarapith hotel based on his spot inspection report, officials said.