Lucknow | Eight persons, including seven engineers and a contractor, were arrested in connection with a flyover collapse Varanasi in May that left 15 people dead, Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) OP Singh said today.
Those arrested were – the then chief project manager Harishchandra Tiwari, former chief project manager Genda Lal, project manager Kuljash Rai Sujan, assistant engineer Rajendra Singh, assistant engineer (mechanical/safety) Ram Tapasya Singh Yadav, junior engineer (civil) Lalchandra Singh, junior engineer (civil) Rajesh Pal Singh and contractor Saheb Hussain — the DGP said.
He said action was taken against the eight after collecting “technical proof” with the help of the scientists of the Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee (Uttarakhand). “It was found that there were many shortcomings in the bridge, on which the investigating officer quizzed the engineers before arresting them,” Singh said.
A probe into the incident found that failure to cast cross beams for locking the girders led to the collapse of a portion of the railway overbridge (ROB) as the structure was left exposed to external forces. The report of a technical committee set up by the state government to ascertain the cause of the incident and accessed by PTI also said an uninterrupted traffic flow on the busy road was the main reason for generating vibrations that might have led to the collapse.
An FIR was registered against the UP State Bridge Corporation officials, who were working on the site, under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide) of the IPC on May 16, a day after the collapse, following a complaint by the Roadways police outpost in-charge.
The project manager and other officials were suspended and the government had also shifted the Managing Director of the UP State Bridge Corporation, Rajan Mittal. Mittal was removed from his post during the term of the Akhilesh Yadav government, following complaints. He was reinstated when the BJP government came to power in the state last year.
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