Lucknow hotel fires: Two arrested, inquiry ordered

Lucknow: A magisterial inquiry has been ordered and two persons arrested by Lucknow Police in connection with the fire incident at two hotels which claimed five lives.

A major fire broke out at two hotels in the busy area of the city morning, killing five people and critically injuring four. 

The fire broke out at a hotel in the Charbagh area near the railway station at around 6 AM and spread to an adjacent hotel.

"We have arrested two persons -- Pankaj and Rajkumar. One of them was a manager in a hotel, while the other was a security guard on duty when the accident took place.

 In the FIR, the owners, managers, and guards on duty of both hotels were named," Superintendent of Police (Lucknow West) Vikas Chand Tripathi told PTI.

Pankaj was the supervisor on duty at Hotel Virat, while Rajkumar was the guard on duty at SSJ International at the time of the incident, police said.

An official of Lucknow district administration said, "The deceased has been identified as Mehar (one-and-half-year-old) from Kanpur, Santosh Mane (35) from Pune, Priyansh Sharma (40) from Aligarh, Ganesh Prasad (45) from Patna and an unidentified woman."

District Magistrate of Lucknow Kaushal Raj Sharma said, "A magisterial inquiry has been set up for the Charbagh hotel fire incident.

The city magistrate will conduct an inquiry into the reasons behind the incident and submit the report in a month. 

"Teams will be made in two days comprising the additional city magistrate, circle officer, municipal corporation, Lucknow Development Authority and Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration.

The team will conduct inspection and inquiry will be done vis-a-vis following buildings - hotels, restaurants, bars and nursing homes," he said.

He said the team will find whether the buildings were made according to plan and had no objection certificate from LMC and LDA and whether they had the permissible electric load, which is required to run their whole complex or not.

ADG Lucknow zone has been directed to inquire into the incident, Principal Secretary (Home) Arvind Kumar said.

DIG (law and order) Praveen Kumar had said that the map of one of the hotels was not approved, while there was no staff to handle firefighting equipment in the neighboring hotel.

Cases have been registered against owners of both hotels under various sections of the IPC, he had said.