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| Engineer’s death at Baglihar: | | A case of culpable homicide? | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Sept 9: Five days after the City lost one of its promising engineers associated with the prestigious yet controversial Baglihar hydro-electric power project, the family of the deceased has put it as a case of criminal negligence and accused the project authorities of culpable homicide.
On September 4, while reporting the case of Engineer Akshay Gupta’s drowning at Baglihar project site, Early Times had pointed out that it was sheer negligence of the project authorities that claimed lives of four school children downstream. The school children were taking a dive on banks of Chenab that the project authorities suddenly opened dam channel gates leading to unprecedented rise in water level which washed the children away.
Even as the bodies of the four children are yet to be recovered and no official explanation in the cause of Engineer’s death have been revealed by the authorities, the bereaved family of Akshay Gupta did a fact finding exercise itself. Though it is not a magisterial or judicial probe but the spot survey and assessment of other prevailing conditions made by Akshay’s family sufficiently support their allegations that Engineer’s death was a clear case of criminal negligence at part of project authorities and legally it can be taken closer to culpable homicide.
Having lost their son in the prime of his youth and middle of his career, the family has resolved not to sit quite over the matter. “We will take all steps including such struggle as needed for getting justice”, says a statement signed by all members of the Gupta family. The family has called for a thorough judicial probe by a judge or a person of known integrity and impartiality so that no such incident re-occurs and the guilty should be punished.
Akshay Gupta, a Civil Engineer, was associated with Lahmeyer International which along with JP Associates are employed by the Power Development Corporation.
Soon after cremation of their beloved and young engineer, the family member of Gupta visited the spot of mishap and collected the facts. They discovered that though the flow river Chenab is obstructed by a Dam, there is metallic wall over the Dam which has been designed to open and close to the desired limit by a computer operated procedure. The family also discovered that there were three designer involved. The first designer was principal employer i.e. Power Dev. Corporation which approved the civil design second Designer was J P Associate which designed the civil engineering of Dam as well as metallic gate, as state above could be opened to the desired limit from the operation room. As per the design, there are two modes for operating the gate. The first mode for operation of gate was by fully automatic computerized mode for which all the commands are recorded in the computer and the second mode is by manual mode. The designer had informed the user about the appropriate operation of gate by computer mode as any operation of other mode could be result in human error.
On the fateful day, Akshay Gupta and other employees were made to stand on a concrete girder which had a separate technical name to watch the limit of flow of water. There was another officer standing far away who could physically see the flow of water and by walkie-talkie inform the operation room to either stop or further open the gate. The family has found that three days ago the physical defects were observed in the gate and operating system, in the control room which could regulate the flow of water and it was sufficient warning sign. The system got tripped on fateful date. The employer, however, without caring anything about the life of the persons standing on the concrete girder and knowing about the fact that with full opening of gate, more than1.00 lacs cuses water will flow through the gate which will wash away anything coming in its way. Opening of gates is a decision of criminal negligence causing in loss of human life of a promising young engineer namely Akshay Gupta, standing on the girder the other person who was physically seeing him standing on the girder with walkie-talkie did not inform control room about the desired opening of gate from the control room. The man operating from the operation room had little realization that whole system was not trust worthy. He did not care any thing and opened the gate t such an extent that full flow of water measuring more than 1.00 lac cuses water rushed towards the concrete girder and passing through 12 metres channel by virtue of which the life of Akshay Gupta was lost and the flow of water ultimately also resulted in the death of three small children.
The aforesaid three companies have by briefing the press by suppressing the material that it was a case of accident and not a case of accident but a case of culpable homicide, which may be or may not be murder and all those who are criminally responsible for such negligence deserve to booked an punished properly. The principal employer of the company is Power Dev. Corporation which is wholly owned by the State of J&K. the tragedy is that during last rites of Akshay Gupta, no senior officer of either Power Dev. Corporation or J P Associates cared to attend the last rites and condole the family. The Power Dev. Corporation does not realize that it is a corporation wholly owned by the Govt of J&K which cares a lot for its own employees and it is governed by SRO called SRO 64 by virtue of which even class IV employee dying in service, the family is looked after, provided employment and given pensionary benefits. This is the case of a promising young engineer who lost his life working the aforesaid corporation and the government of J&K, employer and principal employer were simply dismissive about it by calling it as accident. |
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