Kolkata flyover collapse: Construction company official arrested

A top official of the Hyderabad-based construction company which was responsible for building Vivekananda flyover that collapsed last week killing 26 people and injuring 89 others, has been arrested, police said today. With this, the number of arrests in this connection have risen to nine.

IVRCL assistant vice-president of Project Monitoring Cell (PMC) and administration of the Eastern Region, Ranajit Bhattacharjee was arrested late last night after questioning at Lalbazar, the headquarters of Kolkata Police, a senior officer confirmed today.

Bhattacharjee, who had fallen sick and was hospitalised after the March 31 collapse, was  discharged from the hospital last evening following which he was taken to Lalbazar immediately.

With Bhattarcharjee’s arrest, nine officials of IVRCL have been arrested under IPC sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) and others.

So far, IVRCL Director Operations Gopal Krishnamurthy, Deputy General Manager of Project Monitoring Cell (PMC) S K Ratnam, Assistant General Manager Mallikaarjun Rao, Assistant Manager Debjyoti Manjumdar, Structure Manager Pradip Kumar Saha, Project Manager Tanmoy Sil and senior engineers Shyamal Manna and Bidyut Manna have been arrested.

“Bhattacharjee was reporting to Ratnam... So we are looking into that also,” the officer said. A search would be conducted at IVRCL’s office in south Kolkata from where Bhattacharjee used to work.

“We will take Bhattacharjee along with us during the search operation. We need to seize documents regarding the Vivekananda flyover,” he said.