Dozens injured in fire

Five persons including a woman and a one and a half year old girl were killed while above a dozen suffered burns in a fierce fire that engulfed two Lucknow area early in the morning on Tuesday. Four bikes and two cars were also gutted in the fire. The incident exposed fire and police department promptness in reaching to the scene and carrying out the rescue operation. Senior officials including ADG Lucknow Zone Rajeev Krishna, IG Lucknow Sujeet Pandey, DG Fire Praveen Kumar and SSP Lucknow Deepak Kumar reached the scene to oversee the ongoing rescue work. Chief Minister UP Yogi Adityanath announced ex gratia compensation of Rs 2 lakh each to the family of the deceased and Rs 50,000 each to the families of those suffered burns in the mishap.

Around 5:30 am on Tuesday, the police control room got a distress call about the incident by some pavement dwellers who saw smokes billowing out of the Hotel SJS International. About 35 minutes laterthe Naka police reached the place followed by fire men who reached the scene by 6.15 am. By the time, the fire had turned ferocious and the victims were charred to death. The police found their bodies buried under the singed false ceiling of the hotel rooms. Four bike and two four wheelers were gutted in the fire by then. According to eyewitnesses, they heard a blast in the AC panel installed at opening of basement at SJS International hotel. The fire soon spread to the bar cum restaurant at the basement and soon the frontage of the hotel. As the fire flames leapt high, it caught the adjacent hotel Virat International also. Soon this hotel was also on the fire. The rooms at the front portion of both the hotel was on fire.

The violent fire caused the inmates to get panicked out of their wits. There was a stampede at the first floor, second floor and third floor of both the hotels. Since the front portion was on flames, they climbed upstairs to reach the top floor of the hotels and then they climbed down the roof of the buildings behind the hotels and thus saved their lives. In the melee and in the hurry to save themselves from the fire, the inmates dropped their belongings inside the rooms they had stayed and all their belongings was reduced to ashes. “I woke up hearing the breaking of the glass window panes at the frontage of the hotel and saw fire flames leaping high,” Sarthak Samanto of Kolkata told. He along with his colleagues Bishwadeep Dutta and Anand Roy had visited the city as they had some contract related work at RDSO and had checked into the hotel. “I was saved by God’s grace,’ Roy told. A pan kiosk owner said people were crying, they were trying all the measures and methods that clicked to them when the fire broke out to save themselves and there were no policemen or firemen to save us. We saw some persons fleeing through the upstairs to fourth floor of the hotel and we followed them. We came at the roof and then jumped to the roofs of buildings behind the hotels. Then we climbed down and reached at a safe distance. It surfaced during investigation that most of the rooms were occupied by examinees of constable recruitment board exam and for UPPCS exams. There are above 100 inmates at different rooms of the hotels. However, the record register showed that only 55 inmates had stayed in the hotels. The Lucknow police, however, discounted the reports that police and firemen reached the scene late. The police spokesman said the control room flashed the message at 6.15 am. “On the information, several fire teams and the local police were sent to the place to control the situation and control the fire. The police and firemen rescued around 70 persons who were trapped inside the fire at both the hotels,” he said. He further informed that four persons with burns injuries were rescued from SSJ hotel while two persons died of burns and smothering at the Hotel Virat International. The police spokesman said the deceased were identified as the one and a half year old girl Meher of Kanpur and Priyanshu Sharma (40) of Atrauli in Aligarh district, Santosh Mane of Pune and Ganesh Prasad of Patna and an unidentified woman. He said efforts to ascertain the identity of other deceased and injured persons were on. The staff at the Civil Hospital said Mahak’s mother Rani had suffered 90 per cent burns and her condition was critical. A critically injured person had been admitted at SIPS also. The deceased Mahak along with her parents and four other members of her family had visited the city to meet one their relative in Old City. They had stayed at the hotel and were to leave for Kanpur on Tuesday morning. Her father’s car was also gutted in the fire.