Stopovers, brief stays turned fatal, rue kin & friends of guests who choked to death
Kolkata: Manoj Patra (43) from Jagatsinghpur in Odisha was supposed to catch a bus to Bihar on Wednesday morning, said his family friend Mahendra Pandey outside the NRS morgue on Wednesday afternoon while waiting for Patra's body.
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He, along with Dusmanta Nayak (46) and Dusmanta Kumar Swain (46), both from Haripapa village, checked into the hotel on Tuesday as a stopover before taking the bus to Purnia to attend the inauguration of a wheat mandi. The trio were among 14 people who lost their lives.
"I received a phone call from my friend saying that his cousin is no more. There was a fire and his body is at NRS. The family was still in shock and took a train to Kolkata.
I reached the morgue to ensure that the process for his body release can at least start," Pandey said. Two of Patra's relatives reached the morgue by afternoon, but they wished not to speak to media.
Like Pandey, many local friends came to help the families of those who choked to death at Hotel Rituraj on Tuesday. Kolkata resident Narayan Agarwal rushed to the spot after hearing about the fire where his friend Rajesh Kumar Santuka (61) checked in on Monday.
Santuka's body was kept at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
A businessman by profession, Santuka reached the hotel at 6:30 pm after a busy day. He was due to catch a train from Howrah at 8:30 pm. "He went to the hotel to get some rest and was perhaps asleep when the fire broke out. I tried calling him, but his phone was switched off. That's when I rushed to the spot," his friend said. The family reached Kolkata from Cuttack early on Wednesday morning.
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Another Kolkata resident, Prabhu Ram, a friend of deceased Manoj Kumar Paswan, said, "I have known him for more than two decades as we were neighbours. On Monday, we went to offer prayers at a Shiv temple and distributed prasad among friends. Who knew it would be my last meeting with him?"
While friends and families spoke about the probable activities of their loved ones on the fateful night, two friends, Siddharth Sharma and Sahil Agarwal, remembered the helplessness they felt at not being able to rescue their 29-year-old friend Niraj Kumar, who was inside the hotel.
While Siddharth and Sahil were leaving the hotel to buy something, they detected smoke and stepped outside the hotel to assess the situation. They tried contacting their friend, who was inside at the time, but could not save him. His family members arrived in Kolkata to collect his body from RG Kar on Wednesday.
(With inputs from
Subhojyoti Kanjilal)
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