Police to quiz BWSSB project workers over blast in school

The Madivala police have picked up a group of workers executing a Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) drainage project near Sai Baba Higher Primary School in Rupena Agrahara, where an accidental blast injured three students, for questioning.

“We are questioning some people, including a group of workers working for the BWSSB drainage project. We feel some workers threw the detonators inside the school compound. We might arrest them soon,” said a senior police officer monitoring the probe.

“The BWSSB had awarded the tender to a contractor who is also being questioned regarding safety measures that he had taken. We are also questioning him about the source that supplied the detonators. We will book a case of negligence against him if he is found to have violated norms,” the officer said.

Some workers told the police that they were using the detonators for the last few days and some even took away a few detonators. However, they did not disclose why the detonators were taken away from the construction site, said the police. The officer suspected that they might have taken away the detonators to sell them for higher prices to other contractors. 

The police have not been able to gather critical leads from the CCTV footage on and around the school premises. 

The police are not ruling out the possibility of involvement of other workers employed at a few construction projects at Madivala and HSR Layout as it is suspected that some detonators may have been stolen, he said. 

The Block Education Officer (South Zone III) Muni Reddy M has sought an explantation from the school management. Three class IV students were injured when they plugged in a detonator found in a pile of garbage near the school premises on Friday afternoon. The incident led to chaos for some time as it was presumed to be a terror attack.