Tarapith fire: Hotel owner, son arrested as death toll rises to 9

Two individuals, the proprietor of Hotel Bideshini, Prabir Kumar Pal, and his son Kalyan Pal, who served as caretaker, were apprehended following an early morning inferno at the hotel in Tarapith, a religious town situated in West Bengal’s Birbhum district. This tragedy claimed nine lives on Monday. Prabir Pal was apprehended in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday, while Kalyan Pal was detained late on Monday night.

The police have initiated a suo moto investigation into the incident. The fire brigade has also lodged a formal complaint. The fatalities included two children, with five victims hailing from West Garo Hills in Meghalaya, four from West Bengal’s Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri districts. Forty-four hoteliers managed to escape the blaze, with thirty-four surviving the ordeal.

Search operations were initiated in a pond situated adjacent to the hotel to ascertain if any hoteliers who attempted to flee the inferno had inadvertently fallen into the pond. The hotel’s register likely succumbed to the flames, as the fire ignited near the reception area. Consequently, the exact number of guests present at the time of the catastrophe remains unclear.

Among the identified forty-three individuals, nine succumbed to the blaze. Some guests managed to escape through pipes and trees. Around 4 am on Monday, the fire erupted in the reception area of the four-story hotel, when most of the guests were engrossed in their sleep. The flames rapidly engulfed decorative and wooden materials, with smoke infiltrating the upper floors and ensnaring several guests within their rooms.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the hotel’s front door access was impeded due to the inferno in the reception area. Emergency exits on each floor were locked, and the terrace door was obstructed by plywood, obstructing the smoke and trapping the guests inside.