Mamata to order judicial probe into hospital fire

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said the state government would order a judicial probe into the AMRI Hospital fire accident even as six directors of the institution were remanded in police custody for 10 days. HT reports.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said the state government would order a judicial probe into the AMRI Hospital fire accident even as six directors of the institution were remanded in police custody for 10 days.

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“We have decided to order a parallel judicial probe [alongside the police probe],” Banerjee said, adding that details of who will conduct this probe would be announced on Monday.

Meanwhile, magistrate SM Shahnawaz Khan directed the Kolkata police to produce RS Goenka, SK Todi, Manish Goenka, Prashant Goenka, Ravi Todi and DN Agarwal before the court on December 20.

The custody was for “deliberately not taking precautionary measures to avoid fire”, which has caused the death of 91 patients so far. The patients died mostly due to suffocation.

Banerjee has also constituted a special legal team to represent the police.

Meanwhile, forensic teams could collect no samples from the basement of the hospital because it is still flooded.

State health secretary Sanjay Mitra has now said his department will check each licence issued by the fire department before giving approval to any existing and new hospitals and clinical establishments.