Retired Justice Anindita Roy Saraswati, who heads the Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigating the Durga Puja stampede in Kolkata, said on Thursday that three months was too short to submit the report, but the team would strive to meet the deadline, The Hindu reported.
Source: The Hindu
The October 17 stampede at the Chorbagan Durga Puja pandal in north Kolkata led to 19 deaths and left 25 people injured. The six-member SIT was constituted by the West Bengal government in consultation with the Calcutta High Court to probe the cause of the incident and recommend measures to prevent such incidents in future.
"SIT members will meet soon to chalk out a roadmap for the investigation. We will visit the site to ascertain the cause of the incident," the retired judge told a vernacular news channel, as reported by The Hindu. Asked about the three-month deadline, she said it was a short duration but the team would try its best to meet it.
The committee will examine several aspects of crowd management and safety at the pandal, including permissible footfall, entry and exit routes, installation of CCTV cameras and emergency evacuation facilities, IANS reported. Its findings on lapses will be studied in detail and precautionary measures will be adopted for major Puja pandals from next year, a state government official said.
Source: IANS
An order issued by the Office of the Chief Secretary on October 21 said the SIT would conduct a comprehensive, impartial and thorough inquiry, identify causes and contributing factors, fix responsibility wherever warranted and recommend preventive measures, Live Law reported. Apart from Justice Saraswati as chairperson, the team includes the Principal Secretary of Disaster Management, the Director General of Police (Special Task Force), senior representatives of the police and Home departments and a representative of the National Disaster Response Force in Kolkata.
Source: Live Law
The team is expected to examine CCTV footage, mobile phone video clips and medical reports of those killed and injured, and may record eyewitness accounts, to establish the sequence of events and identify possible lapses.