Kolkata, Oct. 25 -- With the Kolkata Police's Special Investigation Team (SIT) likely to question Sanjeev Raha and Kushal Majumdar together to clarify discrepancies in their accounts, senior police officials have begun compiling a list of personnel deployed at the Chorbagan Sarbojanin Durga Puja pandal when the stampede occurred.
According to sources, the exercise aims to establish individual accountability and ascertain the exact positions of police personnel during the fatal crowd surge. Investigators are focusing on identifying those stationed at the entry and exit gates where the bottleneck occurred. Once the list is ready, all personnel on duty that evening are likely to be summoned by the SIT for detailed questioning about their response times and crowd-management protocols.
Meanwhile, the Kolkata Police SIT is investigating the stampede separately from the state government's SIT, headed by retired Justice Anindita Roy Saraswati.
The police team is likely to question Raha and Majumdar face to face to resolve several gaps in their accounts. Before his arrest, Majumdar had claimed in a letter that a police personnel had asked him to make an announcement. Investigators are now trying to ascertain Raha's whereabouts at the time, as he had been assigned the responsibility of making announcements.
The police SIT has already recorded the statements of around 60 people, including those injured in the stampede.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.