A single night of fire ended everything. Seven Bangladeshis lost their lives. The incident took place in the New Market area, known as Kolkata's 'mini Bangladesh'. The horrific fire broke out late on Tuesday (August 18) at a residential hotel at 15, Mirza Ghalib Street in New Market. A total of 9 people died in the fire at the hotel named '

Shikha Inn'. According to police sources, seven Bangladeshis and two Indian citizens were among the deceased.

According to police information, the two Indians who died were Sandeep Paswan (19) from Jharkhand and Yogi Narayan (68) from Siliguri.

Four of the seven Bangladeshis who died were from the same family. They are Debashish Dutta (39) from Kushtia, his wife Afsana Sharmin (27), their three-year-old son Swarnashish Dutta and Debashish's father-in-law Md. Akram Ali (64). The remaining three Bangladeshis are Babu Ahmed (37) from Savar in Dhaka and Revati Sarkar and SM Alimuzzaman from Kaliganj in Satkhira. Some of them came for treatment, some for sightseeing.

According to local sources, the fire broke out at around 2:30 am on Tuesday. The fire broke out on the third floor of the five-story residential hotel. After that, the situation became dire when black smoke spread throughout the building. The fire service was able to control the fire after about two hours of effort. However, the third floor was damaged by the fire before that. Many people were trapped inside as the hotel's entrance and exit were narrow.

Many of the residents on the third floor were asleep at the time of the incident and could not return alive. The tourists in the rest of the building woke up and started running when they started having trouble breathing in their sleep. Many climbed onto the roof of the fifth floor, while some went down and came out onto the street. However, within moments, several vehicles from the Fire Service headquarters on Free School Street, which is nearby, rushed to the scene. Along with that, the local police of New Market, Park Street and Taltala police stations arrived on the news.

60 to 70 people were rescued one by one. The injured among them were taken to the local Calcutta Medical College, Nil Ratan Sarkar and other hospitals. After primary treatment, all of them were released.