Kolkata Police said on Friday that the team investigating the fire at Hotel Shikha Inn on Mirza Ghalib Street, which killed nine people including a child on the intervening night of August 18 and 19, has submitted its chargesheet in the case.

Source: India News Stream

The chargesheet, filed at a lower court in Kolkata on Thursday, names three people: Bireshwar Moitra, the original owner of Hotel Shikha Inn; Abu Zafar, who had taken the hotel on lease from Moitra; and Abu Zafar's wife Saba Zafar, who was the last of the accused to be arrested, last month, after absconding since the tragedy. The charges are allegations in a police chargesheet and have not been proven in court.

The 350-page chargesheet contains the recorded statements of 90 witnesses, a city police official said, and police have also submitted a forensic report along with it. The accused have been charged under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita provisions relating to culpable homicide, endangering life and conspiracy.

Source: Bumppy

Rooms carved up, building converted without permission, chargesheet says

According to the chargesheet, originally bigger hotel rooms had been demolished and converted into multiple smaller rooms. It states that the building, which housed several hotels including Shikha Inn, was actually a residential complex that was illegally converted into a hotel later, without the permission of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the West Bengal Fire Services Department.

The fire broke out on the third floor of the building. The hotel rooms quickly filled with thick smoke, and most of the nine victims died of suffocation. The majority of those who lost their lives were Bangladeshi nationals who had come to Kolkata for medical treatment.

The filing is a major new development in a case that has moved through a series of arrests since August: leaseholder Abu Zafar was held soon after the fire, owner Bireshwar Moitra was arrested later, and Saba Zafar was arrested last month after absconding since the tragedy. The case will now proceed in court on the basis of the chargesheet.