The company that constructed the Kolkata Bridge, which collapsed on Thursday, has been charged with murder. Earlier, a case was filed against the company, IVRCL, under section 304 of the Indian Penal Code, which refers to negligence not amounting to murder, but the charge has been converted to section 302.
The Kolkata police have also detained five employees of the company.
The death toll from the collapsed central Kolkata flyover rose to 25 on Friday, after emergency workers toiled through the night to find any remaining survivors trapped under huge slabs of concrete and metal girders.
he Hyderabad-based IVRCL which was constructing the flyover in Kolkata, a portion of which collapsed on Thursday killing 24 people, on Friday described the incident as an “accident”, a day after another official of the company had dubbed it as an “act of God”.
“An act of God was just an expression only to describe that it is under no one’s control”, said P Sita, the construction company’s legal team head.
K Panduranga Rao, group head (hr & admin) of the Hyderabad-based company had told reporters on Thursday, “it’s nothing but a God’s act. So far in 27 years we have constructed several number of bridges…such thing (collapse) never happened,”
Accusing the erstwhile Left Front regime of making a “faulty plan” for building the flyover, that collapsed on Thursday, TMC MP Sudip Bandopadhyay on Friday said there were complaints among the locals about its planning.
“The plan and design of the flyover were made during the Left regime. There were faults in the planning and design of the flyover. The locals had complained about the planning of the flyover but at that time 60 per cent work was done. There were also discussions whether the design could be changed,” Bandopadhyay, TMC MP from Kolkata North, told reporters.
A petition was filed on Friday at the Calcutta High Court for a court-monitored probe into the flyover tragedy that has claimed 24 lives so far.
Filed before the bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur, the PIL (public interest litigation) seeks a CBI investigation as well as a panel of experts from IIT Kharagpur to probe the causes for the collapse of Vivekananda Flyover in the busy Posta area on Thursday.
“An expert committee is required to examine whether the materials used for construction were quality checked or not, whether they were approved by the ISI as well as whether there was any flaw in the planning of the entire project,” said Goutam Dey, counsel for the petitioner.
“So we have urged the court to form a committee comprising experts from IIT Kharagpur which will work under the supervision of the court. We have also asked for a CBI probe into the whole matter,” Dey said.
