**Two people have been arrested in connection with a huge fire in the Indian city of Calcutta, which has claimed 24 lives, the police said.**The two men were caretakers of the historic Stephen Court building, which caught fire on Tuesday.
Dozens were also injured - many jumped from high floors to escape, police said. Some 10 people are still missing.
The fire was among the deadliest in Calcutta in recent years. It reportedly broke out in a lift shaft and spread.
The caretakers have been held for not ensuring the safety of the building, reports say.
The police are also looking for two men who own the building jointly, a senior official said.
Firemen found the charred bodies of 17 persons on an upper level staircase.
“These people must have attempted to escape by trying to climb on the roof of the building, but the door to the terrace was locked and so they were trapped,” West Bengal’s police chief Gopal Krishna Bhattacharya told reporters.
Calcutta police chief Mohan Chakrabarti accused the owner of the 100-year-old Stephen Court building of not observing fire regulations.
But local residents accused the fire services of taking nearly an hour to arrive at the scene.
Four of the bodies are yet to be identified.
Nearly 100 fire-fighters and 25 fire engines spent several hours struggling to control the blaze.
Fires in high-rise buildings are fairly common in the city. There have been at least 10 major incidents since 2008.
Electric short circuits have been responsible for most of these fires.