Mamata visits fire-ravaged hotel, promises action against guilty

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday inspected the fire-ravaged hotel in central Kolkata and announced that those responsible for the death of 14 people in the city’s latest inferno tragedy will not be spared.

Banerjee reached the affected Rituraj Hotel in the Mechhua Falpatti area of Burrabazar on her way back from Digha following the inauguration of the Jagannath Dham the day before and said that special committees comprising police, administration and fire services department are being set up to monitor and identify establishments which are flouting fire safety norms.

"The teams will conduct surprise checks at private and commercial establishments in the city, as well as district towns. Not just the owners who will be found guilty of norm violation, but also those in the administration responsible for oversight and handing operational NOCs to premises with inadequate fire safety will also come under the purview of punishment," she said.

"The panels will prepare reports and submit them to my office in the next 15 days," the CM added.

Flanked by Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Kumar Verma and senior ministers Sujit Basu and Sashi Panja, Banerjee informed reporters that the hotel was sealed and its owner and manager were arrested.

“This hotel has been in operation since 1989. It’s an old property and its hydrants were dry. People died not because of burns, but by the smoke they inhaled. The outlets to release the smoke remained sealed and there was only one staircase,” she said.

Drawing attention to dilapidated structures in the vicinity of the accident site, the chief minister requested their inhabitants to temporarily relocate to safe residences and have the properties repaired in the meantime.

“Notwithstanding the legal disputes that they may or may not have, owners and tenants of these precarious structures should sit together and decide on repairing their buildings. The city police and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation will assist them in the task. The safety and security of people take precedence over everything else. You must live and let live,” Banerjee said.

Building owners are only interested in earning money from their properties, she said, adding that most of them do not care about the lives of people who live or work in them.

The CM urged owners of shops and establishments in marketplaces to put an immediate stop in storing inflammable articles like plastics and chemicals.

“The committees will conduct regular checks for violation of norms. It’s easy to light a fire but dousing it is much more difficult. Do not play with fire,” she said.

Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress supremo, said, “Don’t vote for me if you don’t like what I am saying. But save your lives first.”

The devastating fire at the private budget hotel on Tuesday left 14 people, mostly visitors to the city, dead. The victims included a woman and two children.

The incident, a re-run of some of the worst infernos in Kolkata in recent memory including those in the Burrabazar wholesale trading hub, brought to the fore questions of brazen disregard for fire safety norms in the city coupled with scanners on the status of safety checks from authorities concerned.