Lucknow fire incident: Court rejects anticipatory bail plea by hotel owner

The anticipatory bail application of Pawan Agarwal, one of the owners of the hotel where four people died in a blaze earlier this month, was rejected by a local court here on Wednesday.

The court, while commenting on the investigation of the case, said the investigating officer failed to fix responsibility of officers of the departments concerned who kept their eyes closed and didn't act against the accused.

During the hearing, it was argued on behalf of the prosecution that the accused was operating the hotel by defying rules and without making proper arrangements for fire safety arrangements, which makes it clear that the accused was well aware that his act could lead to some untoward incident.

It was also said on behalf of the prosecution that the case was reported by Hazratganj Sub-Inspector Daya Shankar Dwivedi on September 5, 2022, saying that a fire broke out at Hotel Levana Suites at 7 am after which a team of policemen and fire fighters took hours to bring it under control.

It was also said that four people died of burns and suffocation in the incident, while seven people were injured.

The court has said in its order that according to the police, the hotel was being run illegally without getting it's construction map cleared from authorities.

On which the responsible officers also issued the no-objection certificate and sat blindly while business continued as usual in the hotel.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had earlier ordered a detailed inquiry into the matter.

The hotel owners Rahul Agarwal, Rohit Agarwal, Pawan Agarwal (all three from the same family) and hotel general manager Sagar Srivastava were booked under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 308 (attempt to culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code.

Rahul Agarwal, Rohit Agarwal and Sagar Srivastav were arrested by police a day after the incident. Pawan Agarwal is likely to be arrested soon, police sources said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)