BENGALURU: Baiyappanahalli police on Monday arrested three officials of Ramky Infrastructure for the death of three manual scavengers, who had suffocated to death while clearing a blocked manhole at Kagadaspura in CV Raman Nagar on March 7. The police had filed a case under 304 IPC and section 8 of Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.
The accused K Babu Reddy, AGM (Projects), N T Reddy, Manager (Projects), both of Ramky Infrastructure Ltd and Vemula Anjaneyulu, a sub-contractor of the firm were arrested in Hyderabad. Other accused are still absconding.
According to police sources, the accused were nabbed from Hyderabad where they had been absconding for the last six days. "We have started questioning the accused," the source said. On Friday, Babu Reddy, in an attempt to hoodwink the police, had sent two persons to take the fall by claiming to be supervisors, under whom the deaths had occurred.
"However, we gathered information from these people about the whereabouts of the real culprits and launched an operation to nab them. Reddy had offered money to the duo to surrender before the police. The accused will be taken into police custody for five days for further investigation. We are recording their statements about the incident. Some of the accused are still at large and efforts are on to nab them," police sources said.
Anjaneya Reddy, (34), Yerraiah (35) and Dhavathi Naidu (40), all natives of Andhra Pradesh had died on March 7 after they entered a manhole without any safety equipment. They suffocated due to the toxic fumes while cleaning a clogged drain. Anjaneya Reddy, the supervisor, was allegedly pressurised to fix the manhole in CV Raman Nagar by Ramky contractors.