Mumbai hotel blaze: BMC probe finds four employees guilty of negligence, suspended

Almost two months after eight people succumbed in the City Kinara blaze in Kurla, BMC authorities have found four of their employees guilty of negligence and suspended them.

The hotel City Kinara at Kurla.

The BMC had launched a probe into the blaze to find out if there were any irregularities on the part of the civic authorities that led to the incident. The BMC had appointed a special committee under Bharat Marathe, Deputy Municipal Commissioner Zone-V to prepare a detailed report about the City Kinara Blaze and submit it to Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta.

The committee found the four guilty and recommended suspension of the four employees from BMC, which Mehta has accepted.

The incident which took place on October 16 saw eight people, including seven students of the same college in Vidyavihar, Don Bosco, lose their lives within minutes.

The blaze at City Kinara, a Chinese restaurant in Kurla West, took place when a gas cylinder exploded creatign a death trap for all the eight customers of the restaurant, sitting on the mezzanine floor. VB Nagar Police, under whose jurisdiction the incident took place, arrested the manager of the restaurant, Sharad Tripathi. The case against Tripathi is still going on.

After the incident, the BMC launched a special probe into the tragic event to ascertain the negligence on the part of the employees as well as officials of L ward. The report has mentioned one junior engineer, two cleaning superintendents and one contractor committed negligence in the part of the restaurant.

Marathe's committee has also requested that there's probe into the responsibility of the gas cylinder distributor and other concerned persons. BMC is now slated to direct the gas cylinder provider agency of the restaurant to file cases against the distributors and other people involved in the matter and keep the BMC officials in the loop.