Top cops, officials transferred after Gujarat HC flays govt over Rajkot tragedy

Twenty-eight people, including several children, were killed in a massive fire broke out at an unlicensed gaming zone in Gujarat’s Rajkot on Saturday

The Gujarat government on Monday transferred three senior police officers and a top civic official in Rajkot after 28 people, including children, were killed in a massive fire broke out at an unlicensed gaming zone in the city on Saturday.

Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel inspects the fire accident site in Rajkot on Sunday. (AFP)

Rajkot police commissioner Raju Bhargava has been replaced by Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Brijesh Kumar Jha. Vidhi Choudhary, additional commissioner of police (administration, traffic and crime) Rajkot City and Sudhirkumar J Desai, DCP-Zone 2, Rajkot, have also been transferred, according to a government notification.

The bureaucratic reshuffle also saw the transfer of Rajkot municipal commissioner Anand Patel, who has been replaced by DP Desai, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUDA).

The state government also ordered the suspension of six officials in connection with the fire tragedy - RMC’s town planning assistant engineer Jaideep Chaudhary, assistant town planner Gautam Joshi, deputy executive engineers MR Suma and Paras Kothiya of Rajkot Roads and Buildings department, and police inspectors VR Patel and NI Rathod.

The court noted that all Rajkot municipal commissioners from 2021 until the May 25 incident “should be held accountable for the tragedy” and directed each of them to submit individual affidavits. It also expressed a lack of faith in the “State machinery which gets into action only after innocent lives are lost.”

Preliminary investigations into Saturday’s fire at the TRP game zone in Rajkot’s Nana-Mava locality revealed major safety lapses like lack of a fire NOC and emergency exits at the facility where welding work was underway.