Kolkata Fire Mishap: 3 Odias among 14 charred to death

Bhubaneswar: As many as four people from Odisha are among the 14 persons who were charred to death at a fire tragedy at Rituraj Hotel in central Kolkata’s Mechuapatti area last night.

The three deceased Odias has been identified as Manoj Patra of Nandan village under Tirtol police station limits in Jagatsinghapur district, Dushmanta Kumar Nayak, who was living in Suka Vihar area near the Dhabaleswar Mandir in Bhubaneswar, and Dushmanta Kumar Swain.

Sources said that all the three persons were working at a finance company situated in Bhubaneswar and had gone to Kolkata on official work. They had booked room in Rituraj Hotel and were present when the fire mishap occurred yesterday.

As per reports, the blaze, reason of which is yet to be known, was first spotted in the hotel at around 8.30 PM on Tuesday and was brought it under control only early this morning after nearly 10 hours of operations by the firefighters.

Taking a serious note of the incident, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed anguish over the loss of lives in the fires mishap and announced ex-gratia. The PM announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh each for the families of the deceased and Rs 50,000 each for the persons who were injured.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also expressed her condolence over the death of 14 people in the incident and monitored the rescue and firefighting operations.