Two Government Engineers Held In Kolkata Flyover Case

Kolkata: Even as the Kolkata police filed charge sheet against 10 people in the flyover collapse case on Tuesday, two senior government engineers were arrested.

“Priyatosh Bhattacharyya (Chief Engineer AD Sector) and Santanu Mandal (Executive Engineer, AD Sector) of Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) were arrested on Tuesday,” the police said. The KMDA is the main supervising agency of the related project.

In the charge sheet filed in a city court, the accused are charged under several Sections of the IPC including 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention). A section of the Vivekananda flyover collapsed in the city on March 31, killing 28 persons.

As for the reason of withdrawing the murder charge (Section 302 of the IPC), Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime-Additional Charge) Vishal Garg refused to comment on the matter saying that the matter was “sub judice.” He also said that no one had been mentioned as absconding in the case. There are 241 witnesses in the case so far.

Legal experts are of the opinion that by withdrawing the murder charge in the case the police has seemingly admitted that the “intention” of the accused to kill anybody can not be established in court.

“By withdrawing the murder charge the police has prima facie admitted that the accused did not have any direct intention to kill anybody in this case,” senior lawyer Anirban Guhathakurta told The Hindu.

In April, amid rising public discontent, police slapped murder charge against the officials of IVRCL, a Hyderabad-based company contracted to build the flyover. Earlier, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said that “stringent action” will be taken against the owners of IVRCL, which was allegedly blacklisted.

Pointing out that the project started in 2008 during the Left regime, she blamed the Left Front government for awarding the contract to a “blacklisted” company.

However, the former Urban Development Minister in the Left Front Ashok Bhattacharya denied the allegation.