Lucknow, Sep 7 (Agency) Owners and General Manager of Levana Suites, who were arrested after four persons were killed in a blaze in their hotel, were on Tuesday remanded to 14 days judicial custody by a local court here, prosecution sources said. Prosecution sources said that owners of the hotel Rahul Agarwal, Rohit Agarwal and General Manager Sagar Shrivastava, who were detained on Monday, were formally arrested by Hazratganj police on Tuesday and produced in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Ravi Kumar Gupta. While the Hazratganj police moved an application in the court seeking directives to remand Rahul, Rohit and Sagar to judicial custody for 14 days, remand of the accused, the counsels of the accused submitted an application to cancel the remand.
The counsels of the accused said that they have been implicated falsely as the incident occurred due to a short circuit which was an accident. They argued that the accused have been arrested on charges of culpable homicide, whereas in the case of an accident the maximum case which could be framed could be of maximum death due to negligence. Opposing the application moved the counsels of the defendant, the prosecution side stated that the accused were operating the hotel in violation of the norms, without making proper arrangements of fire safety, emergency exit and entries from which it is clear that they were aware that an accident could take place due to their act.
The court was told by the prosecution side that Senior Sub-Inspector of Hazratganj Daya Shankar Dwivedi had lodged an FIR on Monday and informed that a fire broke out in hotel Levana Suites at 7 am, which could be controlled after much efforts by the fire fighters and SDRF. He has stated that four persons due to burn injuries and suffocation and several others were injured. Dwivedi in his FIR had mentioned that no fire safety arrangements were made in the hotel by its owners and general manager. After hearing both the sides the court remanded all the three accused to judicial custody till September 19. It may be noted that four persons were killed and eight others were injured when a major fire broke out in hotel Levana Suites situated on Madan Mohan Malviya Marg in Hazratganj on Monday. The owners and general manager of the hotel were detained by the police after the incident.