Kolkata Hotel Owner at Large After Fatal Shikha Inn Fire

Kolkata hotel owner at large Bireswar Mitra has not answered his phone since a fire tore through Shikha Inn on the second floor of 15 Mirza Ghalib Street. When employees at Hotel Jaapon, his other property directly across on Free School Street, tried to reach him after the blaze, the calls went unanswered. "We are still trying to contact our owner but his phone has been switched off," said Indradev Paswan, an employee at Shikha Inn, whose words carry the weight of nine deaths and eighty rescues behind them.

Police from the detective department, Behala Police Station, and New Market Police Station visited Mitra's residence at a complex in the Roy Bahadur Road area of Behala. They found only his wife inside. One of his two cars was missing from the parking area. Officers now believe he fled before investigators arrived, taking one vehicle and leaving the other behind.

Kolkata Hotel Owner at Large: What Police Found

Shikha Inn occupied the second floor of a five-storey building on Mirza Ghalib Street. Mitra had reportedly begun renovating the property recently, having allegedly purchased it. Police said they had not yet located any ownership documents. "As of now, we are still ascertaining if he is the owner or he operates on lease," said an officer from Lalbazar. The legal ambiguity around the property's ownership adds another layer to an investigation already dealing with a criminal abscondment.

Abu Zafar, described as Mitra's manager and a key decision-maker at Shikha Inn, also remains untraceable. Police acknowledged uncertainty about whether the two men are traveling together. Two managers from Hotel Jaapon on Free School Street have been detained for questioning. At least three other workers from that hotel have recorded their statements. Kolkata Municipal Corporation officers are also working to locate Mitra.

Shikha Inn Owner and a Business Built on Rising Tourist Demand

The Free School Street hotel corridor tells a familiar story of urban transformation. A trade association official described how the building had been entirely residential until residents sold and traders moved in, steadily changing the character of the area. As tourist numbers rose through the zone, more hotels opened floor by floor. "These establishments have their loyal customers," said a hotel manager on nearby Marquis Street, noting the demand that had sustained properties like Shikha Inn and Hotel Jaapon for years.

Mitra was not a marginal operator in the area. He held properties on Mirza Ghalib Street and Free School Street simultaneously, and additionally owned two hotels in Digha, the coastal town in West Bengal. He was also known as a patron of a high profile Durga Puja celebration in Behala. That social visibility makes his disappearance more conspicuous and his accountability more urgent.

Hotel Jaapon Kolkata and the Properties Left Behind

Hotel Jaapon sits directly opposite Shikha Inn, its entrance facing the same Kolkata street where investigators have now stationed officers around the clock. The two hotels are connected by the same ownership structure and, now, by the same investigation. Staff at Hotel Jaapon found themselves at the center of a criminal inquiry despite working at a property the fire did not reach. Their managers have been detained. Their statements have been taken. Their owner remains unreachable.

That position, employed by an absent owner whose phone stays switched off, is one that hospitality workers rarely anticipate when they take a job managing hotel operations. The people asking questions about Mitra's whereabouts include homicide investigators, municipal corporation officers, and an employee still dialing a number that rings unanswered.

What the Fire Revealed About Hospitality Safety Standards

The Shikha Inn fire joins a longer and deeply uncomfortable list of hotel fires in Indian cities where buildings have been repurposed from residential to commercial use without commensurate investment in fire safety. The pattern is not unique to Kolkata. It reflects how informal growth in India's hospitality sector has often outrun regulation and enforcement, particularly in older urban districts where property has changed hands repeatedly and legal ownership can itself become contested.

Hotel safety and operational accountability are fundamental obligations before any discussion of occupancy rates, location advantage, or tourist demand becomes relevant. A city's hospitality reputation depends not only on how well its hotels serve guests when conditions are normal, but on whether ownership structures, safety compliance, and emergency preparedness can withstand scrutiny when they are not. The contrast between a market where hotels are growing confidently, as seen in coverage of how Dubai hotel bookings are climbing as Gulf carriers restore capacity, and one where a hotel owner has disappeared after a fatal fire, illustrates how differently accountability operates across the world's hospitality markets.

A City Asking Questions Without Answers

The Kolkata hotel fire that killed nine people on Mirza Ghalib Street happened in a building where renovation was underway, where ownership documentation remains unconfirmed by police, and where the person responsible for that building cannot be reached. Eighty guests were rescued. One young worker from Jharkhand, on his first job, did not survive. The fire brigade headquarters stood forty metres away, and response time was recorded at one minute, yet everything was already lost before help arrived.

Bireswar Mitra's name is now on a police list and a set of unanswered phones. His manager is equally absent. The employees they left behind are speaking to investigators, trying to fill gaps in a record of decisions and responsibilities that only the missing men can fully account for. The rooms of Shikha Inn no longer hold guests. What they hold now is a question that the investigation must eventually answer about who was responsible and whether the answer, when it finally comes, will prevent what happened there from happening somewhere else.

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