Kolkata, Dec 10 (IANS): A court in West Bengal Saturday ordered six directors of the city's AMRI Hospital, where fire claimed 90 lives, to 10 days in police custody. Six of the seven directors arrested Friday were presented before the court.
One director, R.S. Agarwal, could not be presented before the court on medical grounds.
Alipore Chief Judicial Magistrate S.M. Shahnawaz Khan, accepting the plea of the prosecution, ordered the six directors, including Shrachi Group chairman S.K. Todi and his counterpart in the Emami Group R.S. Goenka, to 10 days in police custody.
Seven directors were arrested Friday for several non-bailable offences, including culpable homicide not amounting to murder which attracts a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.
Agarwal got himself admitted to a private hospital Friday evening and has been kept under arrest there.
The accused were brought to court premises under tight security as hundreds of people had gathered around, shouting slogans and demanding death penalty for them.
The Alipore Lawyers Association also joined the demonstrations and said they will not allow any legal practitioner to stand in defence for the directors.
"We have decided that no lawyer will stand for defence for these people. We not only demand death penalty for them but also urge the court not to grant bail," said Kalachand Talukdar, secretary of the association.
Accusing the hospital authorities of being reckless and causing deaths deliberately, government counsel Kalyan Bandopadhyay said: "The directors were rightly sent to custody by the court. They had deliberately switched off the fire alarms and had locked the exit doors. They had blatantly violated fire safety norms."
In the worst fire tragedy in any hospital in India, 90 patients and three staffers were killed in the city's well-known AMRI Hospital when a blaze started in the basement of the annexe building early Friday and quickly spread, trapping hundreds of people.
The pre-dawn blaze broke out at 3.30 a.m., catching many patients in their sleep. While most nurses, doctors and other staffers were able to get away, many critically ill patients died in their hospital beds.