Kolkata Police have shifted their focus to CCTV footage and the possible role of two announcers in the accident at the Chorbagan Sarbojanin puja pandal, after questioning arrested announcer Kushal Majumdar, known as Kalia, and Sanjib Raha, known as Sentu.
According to a report citing sources at Lalbazar, investigators have established that Kalia was holding the microphone on Saptami evening and made announcements to visitors shortly before the accident. Police are examining the timing and circumstances of that announcement, as well as its relationship to the incident.
Kalia was arrested on Friday morning. A post later published from his Facebook account said that he had asked visitors to move away from the pandal after being told by a police officer about the possibility of an accident. He had previously provided the police with an explanation of the circumstances in which he made the announcement, and the Special Investigation Team has also recorded his account.
The investigation has now turned to what happened immediately before the announcement. Police sources said Sentu told Kalia that he was going “inside”, referring to the area where members of the puja committee were seated. Kalia then took on the responsibility of making the announcement. Investigators are yet to determine the precise connection between the announcement and the timing of the accident.
CCTV footage is expected to be important in establishing the sequence of events. Thirty cameras had been installed at the Chorbagan pandal. Police have seized two digital video recorders from the site. One DVR was expected to contain footage from 14 cameras and the other from 16 cameras. However, sources said footage from only 13 cameras was recovered from one of the DVRs, while footage from the remaining cameras was not available.
The police are examining when the announcement was made, what was happening at the pandal at that time and why the complete camera coverage was not available. The missing footage is an important part of the investigation, but the supplied report does not establish when or how it became unavailable.
Investigators also want to collect voice samples from both announcers to determine whether the recorded announcements match their voices. The police are expected to approach the court for permission to collect those samples. No further official finding on the cause of the accident or the responsibility of any individual has been reported in the supplied material.
The case highlights the operational importance of announcements, crowd monitoring and functioning surveillance systems at large public pandals. For the investigation, the immediate next steps are the examination of available CCTV footage, the reconstruction of the announcements and the proposed court application for voice samples.
