Nine people, including a four-year-old child, were killed and six injured when a fire swept through a five-storey building housing several hotels in central Kolkata on Wednesday, with several Bangladeshis among the dead, prompting the government to order a statewide fire-safety audit.

Officials of the state government and the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission initially said five of the deceased were Bangladeshis, including a woman and a child.

However, sources at the Bangladesh mission later said the number of Bangladeshis killed in the blaze had risen to seven, adding that an official statement would be issued on Thursday morning.

The blaze at Shikha Inn on Mirza Ghalib Street, near the New Market area, came barely 48 hours after another hotel fire in Tarapith killed nine people, putting the safety standards of the state’s hospitality sector under renewed scrutiny.

 

Fire and Emergency Services Minister Kaushik Chowdhury said the fire brigade received the call at 2.07 am and began rescue operations a minute later. Five fire tenders were deployed and around 80 people were rescued.

Yet the speed of the response could not compensate for the building’s lack of escape options.

Chowdhury said most of the victims appeared to have died of asphyxia, with burn injuries absent from most bodies. Smoke rapidly engulfed the building after the fire began on the third floor, trapping occupants in cramped rooms.

“The most important part is that on every floor of this building, there are four to five hotels, and most of the rooms do not even have windows,” he said.

A couple being rescued through a window illustrated how design features could determine who lived and who died, the minister said.

The tragedy has put the spotlight on how so many hotels could operate inside a single congested building, and whether they possessed mandatory fire clearances, alarms, trade licences and other approvals.

Chowdhury said a forensic team had examined the premises and police had begun proceedings against the owner, who was absconding.

A special investigation team would establish the cause of the fire which, officials suspect, might have been triggered by a short circuit.

The government ordered fire-safety audits of hotels and guest houses across West Bengal. Buildings in the vicinity of the Mirza Ghalib Street premises will also be scrutinised.

Urban Development Minister Agnimitra Paul said a committee comprising officials of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, fire department, police and PWD would examine whether buildings in the area complied with fire-safety and construction norms.

She questioned how establishments operating in such cramped premises had obtained trade licences and the fire department’s no-objection certificates.

The BJP government accused the previous TMC government of allowing hotels and guest houses to mushroom without adequate scrutiny.

Chowdhury alleged “widespread corruption” in fire-safety arrangements during the TMC era.

Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari described the blaze as a reminder of what he called the previous regime’s “legacy of negligence,” alleging that buildings had been allowed to operate as hotels and other businesses while mandatory safety norms were ignored.

Adhikari said a five-member SIT had been formed to conduct a comprehensive inquiry and promised that those responsible would face action.

Among the dead was 19-year-old Sandeep Paswan, who had left Giridih in Jharkhand only three months ago for his first job at the hotel. He was at the reception when the fire broke out.

Four members of a Bangladeshi family also perished. Journalist Debashis Dutta, 37, his wife Afsana Shirmin, 25, their four-year-old son Swarnashis and Afsana’s father Akram Ali, 64, had come to India for medical treatment.

The family arrived in India on August 3. Dutta, who had worked with newspapers including Ajker Patrika and Ajker Alo, had travelled with his wife and son to Bengaluru for her treatment before returning to Kolkata. Their eight-year-old daughter had stayed back in Bangladesh.

For those who escaped, the night was one of confusion and terror.

Mohammad Asafoul Jamal, from Gazipur in Bangladesh, was sleeping with his brother on the fourth floor when screams outside woke them shortly before 2 am. Others fled through thick smoke to the terrace, used mobile phone flashlights to negotiate dark corridors or scrambled for whatever escape route they could find.

A couple trapped inside a room climbed out through its only window and remained perched on a narrow cornice for nearly half an hour before rescuers reached them.

BJP leader Santosh Pathak also accused the Mamata Banerjee government of failing to prioritise fire safety.

The allegations will now face the test of investigation, but the physical reality at the site has already raised difficult questions.

The Tarapith blaze had already raised similar concerns. Nine guests died there on August 17, including two children and five members of a family from Meghalaya. The hotel owner and his son had been arrested.

Two hotel fires, nine deaths each and separated by only two days, have now forced the state to confront whether safety checks are being conducted only after disaster strikes.

For survivors of Mirza Ghalib Street, the answer was immediate: rooms became traps, darkness erased escape routes, and smoke did what flames did not-suffocate those who could not find a way out to death.

The statewide audit’s effectiveness will depend on whether it identifies hotels operating without clearances, forces compliance where norms have been ignored and closes premises that cannot provide a safe route to the outside before another night turns deadly.