Cheap Kolkata hotels put Bangladeshi patients at risk

When a fire broke out at a hotel on Free School Street in Kolkata, 49-year-old businessman Md Uzzal from Khulna found himself trapped in thick smoke with no way to escape. Fearing the lower floor might collapse, he held onto a window grille and screamed for help for nearly 40 minutes. Nine people suffocated to death inside the building, five of them Bangladeshis. Four of the five were members of the same family from Kushtia who had travelled to India for medical treatment.
According to a Times of India report, the tragedy has raised serious questions about safety at budget hotels in the area known as Kolkata’s “Mini Bangladesh.” The Free School Street, Marquis Street, Sudder Street, Collin Street and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road areas are popular with Bangladeshi visitors, especially patients, because of their proximity to hospitals, low costs and familiar environment.
Survivors and regular visitors, however, describe narrow rooms, cramped corridors and balconies, poor ventilation, a lack of fire exits and alarms, and even rooms without windows.
Debdas Kumar from Bangladesh was staying at a hotel behind the fire-hit building while accompanying his wife for treatment. He said, “We were on the second floor. If a similar fire breaks out here, we will have no way to escape. I did not see any firefighting equipment or alarm anywhere in the building.”
Md Azmul from Khulna, who was staying at a nearby lodge, said, “The corridors and alleys are so narrow that 10 people cannot walk out together. There is only one narrow staircase and no ventilation. If a fire breaks out here, people will suffocate in the smoke.”
Many patients and their families have to stay in Kolkata for weeks for treatment and recovery. For those on tight budgets, hotels in the New Market area, charging between Rs 500 and Rs 1,500 a day, remain a major option.
The five-storey building at 15G Mirza Ghalib Street, where the fire occurred, was originally a residential building. As the number of Bangladeshi patients increased, its interior spaces were divided into small rooms with wooden or plywood partitions and converted into guest houses and hotels. This narrowed corridors and blocked escape routes. Although the building remains registered as residential with the municipality, it was being used commercially.
There are around 250 to 300 such lodges and guest houses in and around Free School Street. Hotel operators admit that, in pursuit of higher profits, they illegally create additional rooms by occupying common spaces and even covering rooftops.
Arfin Mia Dipu, who has travelled to Kolkata for years, said the number of cheap hotels has increased rapidly, but basic safety has been largely ignored. People are being forced to compromise their safety because they need affordable accommodation.
The Free School Street fire has exposed a grim reality of Kolkata’s medical tourism. Hundreds of patients travel to the city every day for treatment, yet many are forced to stay in hazardous hotels simply because they are affordable, where even basic life-saving and firefighting facilities are absent. The tragedy has raised a stark question: safety or affordability?