The investigation into the Chorbagan stampede in Kolkata deepened on Sunday after police took arrested announcer Sanjib Raha, also known as Sentu, to the puja pandal and club premises for questioning and a reconstruction of the incident. The pandal itself was preserved as a crime scene, forcing organisers to hold Lakshmi Puja on a temporary stage beside the club building.
The police action came as investigators examined how the crowd crush occurred at Chorbagan during the evening of Saptami on 17 October. Nineteen people died and 25 others were injured in the incident, according to the report by Anandabazar – Kolkata. Nine people have been arrested so far in connection with the case.
Sanjib, who was arrested in Nadia, was taken to the site at around 4 pm on Sunday. Police also brought him to the club premises and questioned him about the events surrounding the incident. The reconstruction was conducted as the Special Investigation Team, or SIT, continued to examine the sequence of events inside and around the puja venue.
The pandal was kept standing after the idol was immersed. Retired judge Anindita Roy Saraswati, who heads the SIT, had said last Thursday that the idol could be taken out for immersion but the structure would remain in place. Parts of the pandal gate were cut on Friday to allow the idol to be removed, and the immersion was completed peacefully on Saturday in the presence of police personnel.
The decision to preserve the pandal affected the organisers’ traditional Lakshmi Puja arrangements. The festival is usually held on the same stage used for Durga Puja, but investigators did not permit the ritual at the original location because it could damage or disturb evidence at the crime scene. Organisers therefore arranged Sunday’s puja on a temporary platform beside the club building on Amar Basu Sarani. That platform had been constructed during the Durga Puja celebrations.
The SIT is also examining a social-media post published from the Facebook account of another arrested announcer, Kushal Majumdar, after his arrest on Friday morning. In the post, Kushal reportedly claimed that he had made an announcement on Saptami evening at the instruction of a police officer. He did not identify the officer or provide details about the circumstances in which the announcement was made.
Investigators are now checking which police personnel were deployed in Chorbagan at the time, what duties they had been assigned and whether they were performing those duties. Police sources cited in the report said that between 80 and 90 police personnel were present in the area that evening. They were not responsible for security inside the pandal, where guards from a private agency had been deployed. The police were responsible primarily for managing traffic on the roads near the pandal.
The investigation is continuing under the SIT, with the roles of the arrested announcers, private security personnel and police staff on duty being examined as authorities work to establish how the fatal crowd crush took place.
