The Madhya Pradesh (MP) police has registered a case against five people in relation to a major incident of fire that claimed eight lives at a private hospital in Jabalpur on Monday, 1 August.
"A case has been registered under IPC sections 304 (causing death by negligence), 308 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) in the Vijayanagr police station of the district," Siddharth Bahuguna, Superintendent of Police, Jabalpur district told The Quint.
Five people, of which four are partners, namely Nishith Gupta, Suresh Patel, Sanjay Patal, Santosh Soni and manager Ram Soni have been booked in the case.
Ram Soni has also been taken into custody by the police.
On Tuesday, PTI cited Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra as saying that the preliminary probe into the incident has revealed that the fire No Objection Certificate (NOC) of the hospital had expired.
He also said that the police police have registered a case of culpable homicide against four doctors-cum-owners of the hospital and arrested its manager.
The condition of five people who were injured in the fire is stable, an official told news agency PTI.
How Did the Fire Break Out?
The fire began from the entrance of the 30-bed hospital at around 2:30 pm, after which a stampede-like situation emerged at the hospital.
The fire allegedly started after the hospital's electrical load was shifted to generators following a power cut. The generators, however, malfunctioned during the load shifting, leading to the fire. The eyewitnesses and relatives of the patients claimed that the hospital had only one exit and that too a narrow one.
Following the incident, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan ordered assistance to the victims' kin and those injured, and also ordered a high-level inquiry into the fire.
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