Kolkata flyover collapse: Five officials of construction firm detained

Five officials of the company that was building a flyover that collapsed on to vehicles and street vendors in Kolkata here have been detained.

Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar, who paid a visit to the mishap site, told reporters that "We have detained a few officials of the construction company. We are taking action against them".

Kolkata Police has registered a case against the Hyderabad-based construction firm IVRCL under sections 304, 308 and 407 of the IPC and sealed the local office of the company.

According to another senior police official, who spoke to PTI on condition of anonymity, said that about seven persons, injured in Thursday's mishap, were in a "very critical condition".

Asked when would the area be cleared off all the debris of concrete and iron girdles, the officer said, "the clearing at the main crossing (Ganesh Talkies crossings) will hopefully be over by today. But the rest like iron piers, iron pillars, broken concrete parts will be cleared in a step-by-step process."

"The other end of the Vivekananda flyover towards the KK Tagore Street, where the metal pier, holding the bridge, was completely damaged would be cut but a planned engineering plan is necessary for that," he said.

"It's a very very congested area with buildings so close to the flyover. And most of the buildings are very old. So we must keep in mind that in order to remove the damaged portions of the flyover another mishap does not take place," he added.

Army jawans, NDRF along with city police's DMG team, special teams of Kolkata Traffic Police, DC Central, DC South, CRP from the Old Mint camp were all engaged in a night-long rescue operations.