The owner of a hotel, where a woman customer died in a fire 10 days ago, has been arrested here on charges of death due to negligence, police said on Wednesday.
The hotel near Hazipur market in Sector 104 here was operating without obtaining a no- objection certificate (NOC) from the fire safety department and an approval of the building map from the local authority, officials said.
The 27-year-old woman, who worked as a physiotherapist, died of suffocation after a blaze erupted at the Moon Light hotel around 5 pm on May 19. She had checked into the hotel with her 26-year-old partner, who got injured during the episode.
"An FIR was lodged in the case at the local Sector 39 police station. After investigation, the hotel owner Bimlendu Jha (40) has been arrested," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Noida) Vidya Sagar Mishra said.
The case was initially lodged under Indian Penal Code section 304A (causing death by negligence) but changed to section 304 (culpable homicide) during investigation, Mishra said.
According to a police officer, the deceased's brother had alleged in the FIR that the hotel did not have adequate fire safety measures in place.
Earlier, officials investigating the case said the fire had broken out on the fourth floor of the hotel and its staff could not alert the couple, who were in a room on the sixth floor.
On the day of the incident, the couple was the only customer in the hotel, which had opened earlier this month and was still under construction with temporary fire safety measures in place and was yet to receive the NOC from authorities, according to police.
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