Two other employees of the Rajkot Municipal Corporation, including a clerk and a sub-official, have been arrested for trying to make alterations to certain official documents regarding the game zone that witnessed a tragic fire in Rajkot last month that had resulted in the death of 27 people.
New arrests involved Rajesh Makwana, now an assistant town planning officer to the RMC, and Jaideep Chaudhary as an assistant engineer. They are believed to have manipulated documents from the government regarding the ill-fated TRP game zone after the mishap on 25 th May.
One should know that they modified some portions in government papers concerning the TRP game zone after the occurrence,” as told by Parthrajsinh Gohil, Deputy Commissioner of the Police during a press conference last Sunday.
With these two latest arrests, the total number of police arrests made so far in this connection number is 12, and six of the arrested persons work in the government sector and six others.
Earlier, four government officials were arrested: Rajkot’s Town Planning Officer MD Sagathia, assistant TPOs Mukesh Makwana and Gautam Joshi, and Rohit Vigora, former station officer at the Kalavad Road fire station.
Ashoksinh Jadeja, one out of six co-borrowers running the TRP game zone, was arrested on Thursday, and later on, he surrendered. Another co-owner was still in detention while five others were detained and four others were implicated in the property ownership. I can also add that a manager is currently detained by the police.
In the present investigation, the Authorities have also got a confirmation that Prakash Hiran, the sixth co-owner of the center mentioned in the FIR, was a victim of the fire tragedy as he was inside when the entire facility was engulfed in flames.
Welding sparks from the ground floor at the ground floor accidentally ignited material consisting of thermocol sheets, which led to the cause of the fire. The workers attempted to control the fire, but eventually, the fire went out of control and rapidly burned down the entire building.
Further, according to police, the game zone was running without a proper no-objection certificate (NOC) from the fire department of the municipal corporation.
With the ongoing investigations about the Rajkot fire tragedy yet to be completed, the arrest of the RMC officials for conspiracy in altering the documents has shifted the spotlight to the need to expose the complete truth surrounding the catastrophe.
