Kolkata: Two persons suffocated to death while 31 were rescued after a fire broke out at a hotel here early Thursday.

A senior police officer said that the fire broke out at 3.25am probably in the kitchen on the ground floor of Golden Park Hotel in the city’s high security zone of Ho Chi Minh Sarani.

The US Consulate and the British Deputy High Commission are also located in the area.

“Smoke from the kitchen spread to other parts of the hotel through the ducts of the centralised air-conditioning system. Most of the guests were sleeping when the fire broke out and the panic-stricken people were clueless how to get out,” he said.

Ten fire tenders brought the blaze under control and rescued 31 people, including guests and hotel staff, he said.

Eye witnesses said guests on the second and third floors of the hotel tried to jump out of windows to escape the fire.

Fire fighters and disaster management personnel had to break open glass windows of the hotel to let out the thick smoke, the officer said.

Besides, ladders and sky lift were also used to bring the inmates out of the hotel, he said adding, the fire was brought under control after nearly three hours.

A senior official of the hotel was detained following an FIR lodged by the fire department at the Shakespeare Sarani police station.

The two deceased were identified as Anup Agarwal (53) from Gujarat and Chamar Kishan (52) from Odisha.

“Both were declared brought dead when taken to the nearby SSKM Hospital. Going by the nature of their death it seems that both died due to suffocation caused by the thick smoke. However, we will wait for the post mortem report,” he said.

“Initially, we could not identify Kishan and mistook him for another guest. Later checking the hotel records his identity was established,” he added.

Two other guests of the hotel are being treated at a private hospital and three others including the security guard of the hotel were discharged from SSKM Hospital after treatment.

State Fire Minister and City Mayor Sovan Chattopadhyay and senior officials of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) visited the place.

“We are checking whether the hotel had a proper firefighting arrangement or not. As per our officers, the fire alarm did not work during the incident. We are checking it,” a KMC officer said.