Kolkata: At least 52 hotels in central Kolkata and several more in clusters elsewhere in the city were forced to down shutters, citing non-compliance of fire safety measures as the crackdown on hotels in the wake of the nine deaths in the fire at a Free School Street hotel gained momentum on Friday.On the list were nine guest houses and four restaurants on Free School Street that were on Thursday given 24 hours to explain why they failed to comply with fire-safety norms despite repeated warnings. On Friday, closure notices, declaring “indefinite closure”, were seen pasted outside 11 guest houses at 23, Marquis Street, a six-storey residential building close to Florence Mansion, which housed Shikha Inn, where nine people died of asphyxiation following a fire early on Wednesday. “The six-storey building is being used as guest houses, which is in violation of sanctioned plans and they don’t even have appropriate certificates,” said a senior executive engineer of KMC’s Ward 52. The fire department on Friday issued show-cause notices to 17 more hotels on Marquis Street.The establishments shut on Friday included Mansukh Guest House, Magnolia Maggi, Hotel Arfaan International, Hotel Ichhamati and Hotel Duke. Akash Maiti, manager of Ichhamati, located on the third floor of Marquis Plaza, said KMC and fire department teams first visited on Thursday and asked them to evacuate existing guests and stop fresh bookings. On Friday, the team pasted a closure notice and directed the management to disconnect power supply. “It’s a new hotel, established one-and-a-half years ago. The owner converted his 2,600 sq ft flat into a hotel with 11 rooms. We have fire extinguishers but no fire alarm or water sprinkler,” Maiti said.In the same area, KMC had on Thursday issued closure notices to 16 guest houses, including Al-Ayla Hotel, Hotel Samrat, Hotel Elite, Hotel Dawat and Hotel Times International.At Hotel Duke, an employee was seen escorting guests out of the darkened premises. “Ours is a better building than the one that caught fire. But even then, the police and KMC asked us to shut down. We don’t know when we can resume business,” he said. An inspection of the building revealed fire hydrant lines running through it, but disconnected on almost every floor. Several hoses were found leaking or torn.Gulisthan Guest House, Hotel Jaapon, Hotel Royal Palace, Empire Guest House, New Super Guest House, Continental Guest House, Sudder Inn, Biman Lodge and Bhagirathi Guest House, along with restaurants Bhoj Company, Super Fried Chicken, Maria Restaurant and Super Pub Bar—all 13 establishments that were served notices earlier— were found shut on Friday. “We are a fire-compliant hotel with licences and precautions, including fire alarms, water sprinklers and an emergency exit,” said Rifat Khan, proprietor of Gulisthan Guest House on the first floor of 30F, Mirza Ghalib Street. “We showed the documents to the commissioner of fire safety but were told as other establishments in the building were not fire-compliant and the building was in a high-risk zone, we would not be allowed to accept guests.” The inspection teams also checked establishments in Sealdah, Park Circus, Topsia, Thakurpukur and Mukundapur among other areas and shut several establishments between Thursday and Friday for allegedly operating without adequate safety measures and violating both fire-safety norms and KMC building rules.