4 senior officials remanded in police custody till April 11

Four senior officials of the construction company IVRCL who were arrested by the city police on Monday have been remanded in police custody till April 11 after they were produced before the Bankshall Court on Tuesday. 

According to information, no lawyers appeared for the accused on Tuesday. The police appealed to the court for 14 days police remand for the four accused. Police on Monday arrested the four accused — Gopal Krishnamurti, Director (operation), SK Ratnam, DGM (operation) and site engineers Shyamal Manna and Bidyut Manna in connection with the Vivekananda Road flyover tragedy. All the accused were interrogated at the police headquarter in Lalbazar since Monday afternoon. 

Police said that Krishnamurti and Ratnam used to supervise the construction works. They used to come to the site and inspect the work progress. During the interrogation, police came to know that the two engineers Shyamal and Bidyut use to visit the sites on a regular basis and inspect the construction works. On the day of accident, Shyamal was present at the site and received injuries. Police on Tuesday raided various places in the city in connection with the incident. They have seized various documents from a office of the construction company on Beadon Street and the documents were being examined. Police will interrogate Niloy Roy Chowdhury another engineer of the company and a senior official Ranjit Bhattacharya as they were involved in this particular project. 

A team from KMDA and Rail Vikash Nigam Ltd inspected the spot to find out how the affected portion of the flyover could be removed. 

The city police may seek help from the RITES in this connection.  

Police had earlier arrested another four people in connection with the incident. They are Mallika Arjun, senior assistant manager, Pradip Kumar Saha, manager (structural), Debojyoti Majumder assistant manager (administration) and engineer Tanmoy Shil. All of them are in police custody. All the eight accused will be produced before the court on April 11. 

Meanwhile, it may be mentioned that the city police had already served notice to the six board of directors of the construction company in Hyderabad asking them to appear before the investigating officers in Kolkata within a stipulated time failing to which action will be taken against them, a senior police official said.