Kolkata Police have arrested seven people after a disaster at the Chorebagan Durga Puja venue left 19 people dead and 25 injured, including members of the organising committee, personnel responsible for VIP-pass checks and crowd control, private security guards and a person linked to the construction of the pandal’s bamboo structure.
The arrests followed overnight questioning after police detained several people on Saturday. According to the report, 14 people were initially taken into custody for questioning. Police later registered a suo motu first information report against the organisers, including charges relating to culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and announced the arrests on Sunday morning.
Among those arrested are Chorebagan Sarbojanin Durgapuja Committee secretary Rajkumar Sewda, also known as Raja, and committee vice-president Shantanu Dube. Kaushik Saha, who was responsible for checking VIP passes and managing crowds, and Pintu Dey, who was assigned crowd-control duties, have also been arrested, according to the report.
The police action also covers other operational layers of the venue. Biplab Mukhopadhyay, who was involved in constructing the bamboo framework of the pandal, is among those arrested. Suman Chakraborty and Rajesh Pal, both identified as employees of a private security agency, were also taken into custody. The arrests place responsibility for access management, crowd movement, security deployment and temporary construction under investigation.
The incident has highlighted the safety risks that can emerge when large public gatherings depend on temporary structures and multiple layers of event management. The available report does not establish the precise sequence that led to the deaths or identify the specific failure that triggered the disaster. Police have, however, collected closed-circuit television footage and said action would follow if negligence is found in the recordings.
The puja committee’s public poster reportedly lists several politically connected figures as being associated with the event. The report identifies Debdeep Adhikari as connected with the puja; Jorasanko BJP MLA Bijoy Ojha as the committee’s chairman; and T amoghn a Ghosh, president of the BJP’s North Kolkata district unit, as another person associated with it. These associations were reported in the context of the investigation and do not by themselves establish criminal responsibility.
Chief Minister Shubhendu Adhikari said on Saturday night that nobody involved in the accident would be spared and that the CCTV footage had already been collected. The statement came as authorities began questioning organisers and others linked to the venue’s operations.
The scale of the casualties also prompted changes to scheduled public activity. Union Home Minister Amit Shah visited injured people at a private Kolkata hospital on Sunday morning. He had several Durga Puja-related engagements in the city, but those programmes were postponed following the disaster. The arrested individuals’ further legal proceedings and the police examination of the CCTV footage are the next stated steps in the case.
