Kolkata flyover collapse: Murder charge against ten officers of construction firm dropped

Kolkata: The murder charge against ten officers of a construction firm were dropped from the first chargesheet filed by Kolkata Police on Tuesday in a city court in connection with the collapse of a portion of under-construction Vivekananda flyover in Kolkata that killed 26 people about three months ago. [caption id=“attachment_2756394” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A view of the portion of the under-construction flyover that collapsed on Vivekananda Road in Kolkata. PTI [/caption] The murder charge, under which ten officers of the construction company IVRCL were arrested, were dropped from the charge sheet submitted at the court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate(ACMM-1) Dr Madhumita Basu. Instead, the ten were charged under IPC sections 304 (Punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 308 (Attempt to commit culpable homicide), 427 (Mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees), 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) in the over 2000-page charge sheet. Ten officers of IVRCL were arrested under IPC sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) and others. IVRCL Director Operations Gopal Krishnamurthy, Deputy General Manager of Project Monitoring Cell SK Ratnam, Assistant General Manager Mallikaarjun Rao, IVRCL Assistant Vice-president of Project Monitoring Cell (PMC) and administration of the Eastern Region Ranajit Bhattacharjee were arrested in connection with the March 31 collapse. Also arrested were IVRCL Assistant Manager Debjyoti Majumdar, civil execution of IVRCL Niloy Roy, Structure Manager Pradip Kumar Saha, Project Manager Tanmoy Sil and senior engineers Shyamal Manna and Bidyut Manna. Around 241 witnesses were questioned in connection with the framing of the charge sheet. According to Kolkata Police officials, the SIT formed to probe the collapse was waiting for reports from RITES which is checking whether the design of the flyover has any dispute or not and the National Test House which is looking into the quality of the materials used in the construction of the flyover. “We are expecting the reports in another 15 days and after that a supplementary charge sheet is likely to be filed,” the officials said adding police were waiting for expert opinions for their investigations.