Jetty collapse in Hooghly: 4 arrested, toll now 5

Search operation underway in the Hooghly at Bhadreswar on Wednesday. PTI

WITH THE recovery of two more bodies on Thursday, the toll in the jetty collapse in Hooghly river rose to five on a day when four persons were arrested in this connection. Sources said that at least 17 others are still missing. The rescue operation is underway, police said. “Four people have been arrested under non-bailable sections of IPC in this case. Total bodies recovered so far is five. Many are still missing,” SP (Hooghly) Sukesh Jain told The Indian Express. Bodies of a man and a woman were recovered on Thursday after a night-long rescue operation, police sources said.

The accused, all lease holders of the jetty, have been identified as Dipankar Banerjee, Sujit Ganguly, Subhas Pal, all residents of Shyamnagar, and Sukumal Chakraborty, a resident of Noapara. They were responsible for maintenance of Bhadreswar Telinipara ferry ghat where the incident took place, police said. “They have been booked under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide) of IPC,” a police official said. As per sources, police had received a complaint from a local resident, Krishna Prasad Singh, against the four accused. Based on the complaint, they were arrested on Thursday. The local residents have also blamed the district administration for the incident.

Sources said that last year locals of Telinipara Gate Bazar area had submitted a written complaint, demanding maintenance of the jetty and the ghat. But, no action was taken, leading to such a tragedy, the residents alleged. “The casual approach of those responsible for maintaining the ghat led to such a big incident,” said a local. SP Jain said that local people told the police that the jetty had been in bad shape and needed repair. Soil test for the repair work had also been done, he said.

Meanwhile, 20 boats of the disaster management department searched both banks of the river from Serampore to Tribeni, a stretch of around 30 km, for bodies. According to sources, twenty missing names were received by the officials, out of which three persons somehow returned home and 17 are yet to be traced. The Hooghly district administration has opened a camp at the affected Telenipara ghat where missing complaint of 17 persons were registered. Three persons were killed after high tide submerged the temporary jetty on Wednesday morning. Over 50 people were waiting for a boat to Shyamnagar in North-24 Parganas on the 150-feet-high jetty platform made of wood and bamboo, when the incident happened around 11.30 am at Bhadreswar Telinipara.

With PTI inputs