New Delhi:
The Uttar Pradesh Police on Wednesday said they had sent five letters to the corporation responsible for the under-construction flyover that had collapsed in Varanasi on Tuesday warning about safety violations, a leading daily reported.
The police stated that they had filed a FIR against Uttar Pradesh State Corporation’s Pariyojana Prabandhak in February.
At least 18 people died in the horrendous incident. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced a top-level investigation regarding the incident. The state had suspended four officials consisting the project manager after the under-construction flyover collapsed.
Inspector General Deepak Ratan said that they had written five warning letters to the corporation asking them to not violate the traffic regulations.
“Ideally, when they are constructing a portion of the flyover, they are supposed to deploy their own staff for safe traffic regulation and they can request police for assistance,” Ratan told a leading daily.
“But it is we who have been alerting them about the potential problem and they have not acted.”
The firm had requestion local authorities including the district administration, commissioner, and police to control the traffic in that are during construction, Rajan Mittal, the corporation’s director said.
“There was pressure to meet the deadline but no compromise was made on quality and it would be clear during the inquiry,” Mittal told a leading daily.
“As far as traffic management is concerned, it is not the responsibility of the bridge corporation and we had been writing to the district administration and reminding them during meetings with the district magistrate and commissioner for traffic management.”
Yogeshwar Ram Mishra, District Magistrate rejected Mittal’s claims. “We are not passing the buck but the fact is that we had written letters to them several times to clear the service lane and even the traffic police had written to them to cover the work area and protect it. But they did not and that is why the FIR has been registered against them,” Mishra said.
Earlier, Adityanath had announced Rs 5 lakh compensation for kins of those who passed away in the incident and Rs 2 lakh for those injured.
Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya declared the setting up of a Setu Suraksha Cell to prevent such unfortunate incidents.
