Six monitoring panel members held in Ranipet tannery deaths

Six monitoring committee members of a company that operated a common effluent treatment plant in an industrial estate in Ranipet have been arrested in connection with the January 31 death of ten tannery workers, who drowned in sludge from the plant following a wall breach.
Pugalendi, Ramesh, Karthik alias Papplu, Srinivas Reddy, Srinivasa Rao and Rajendran of the Ranipet SIDCO Finished Leather Effluent Treatment Company were arrested yesterday and produced before a court which remanded them to judicial custody till March 19, a CB-CID police release said today.
The criminal act and negligence of the company were being probed and overall investigation continued to be on.

"Forensic and technical experts are roped in to investigate the technical aspects of this case," it said.
Ten workers were killed when toxic sludge from a storage tank of the plant entered the nearby tannery in the Small Industries Development Corporation (SIDCO) Industrial Estate at Ranipet in Vellore District.
CB-CID, which took over investigations into the case from local police, had on February 7 arrested the company's Managing Director Amirthakatesan, Directors Jayachandran and Subramaniyan.