AMRI hospital licence has been cancelled
KOLKATA: The death toll due to the Kolkata’s AMRI hospital fire reached 90 after a day of the incident.
The Kolkata police arrested six of the hospital’s directors – including RS Goenka, who is also co-promoter of FMCG major Emami, and SK Todi, also promoter of real estate and financial services group Shrachi – who surrendered before the authorities.
A case of negligence among others has been filed against them after a major fire in the hospital claimed 89 lives on Friday.
Friday early in the morning thick smoke from a fire in the basement of the hospital spread through the central AC ducting and engulfed the seven floors. Eighty-nine people choked to death, many of them in their sleep, some of them too ill to move even.
The tragedy crossed the death toll during the 1997 Uphaar Cinema fire in Delhi (which killed 59) and the 2010 Stephen Court fire in Kolkata (which killed 43).
This is the second fire incident at AMRI hospital. The previous one, three years ago, had not resulted in any deaths.
Mamata Banerjee chief minister of Bengal, who also holds the health portfolio, cancelled the licence of AMRI, one of eastern India’s leading private hospitals. She has also ordered a probe into the fire.
