A 60-year-old Bangladeshi woman was charred to death while two others sustained injuries in a major fire that broke out at a guest house in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata early on Saturday morning.
The blaze started at the reception on the second floor of the guest house on Mirza Ghalib Street at 4am and soon engulfed 11 rooms in the building, officials said.
"Some 28 Bangladeshis were staying at the guest house at the time of the fire. While the elderly woman died in the fire, the two other Bangladeshi nationals have been hospitalized with injuries," a senior Kolkata police officer said.
The deceased was identified as Samimatul Begum, the officer added.
A Kolkata Fire Service official said that three tenders took nearly two hours to contain the blaze. "The 11 rooms were completely gutted in the fire," he said.
A short-circuit seemed to have triggered the deadly fire, the official said. "A probe has been ordered and we will also check if the guest house has fire safety clearance from the department."
Fires are common at guest houses and small hotels in India because of lax enforcement of fire safety regulations.
