The Opposition has slammed the BJP government in Karnataka over the death of a two-and-a-half-year-old boy and his mother after the staging column of a metro pillar collapsed on them along the Outer Ring Road in East Bengaluru.
"This is the result of the '40 per cent commission' government. There is no quality in development works," state Congress chief D K Shivakumar said.
Congress MLA Sowmya Reddy said, "It's very shocking that an under-construction pillar fell on a woman and child."
"Until now there were pothole deaths, now pillars are collapsing. This is a clear case of violation, negligence and corruption of the BJP government," Reddy added.
A bunch of vertical TMT bars were erected in a circular column to build pillar number 218 for Namma Metro's 38.44-km KR Puram-Airport line under Phase 2B. It was this circular column weighing several tonnes that fell about 40 feet along the busy road in HBR Layout at 10:45 am.
The column struck a family of four riding on a scooter: Tejasvini, a software engineer, her civil engineer husband Lohit Kumar, son Vihan and his twin sister. Tejasvini and Vihan suffered serious injuries and were rushed by passers-by to Altius Multispeciality Hospital.
Soon after the incident, Anjum Parvez, BMRCL MD visited the spot.
Speaking to the media persons, Parvez said, "The incident will be thoroughly investigated to find out why it happened. We will be stopping the work for three days. Measures will be taken to ensure such incidents don't repeat."
"We will be issuing notice to the contractor regarding the incident. If it is a manual mistake, we will take strict action against the concerned person who is responsible for it. The technical report will have complete details about the incident," he added.
The BMRCL MD also announced a compensation of Rs 20 lakh for the family of the deceased persons.
Doctors who treated Tejasvini and Vihan said they suffered severe head injuries, while Vihan was injured in the chest, too. Tejasvini and Vihan died shortly after the mishap, while the father and the twin sibling are out of danger, police said. "They were brought to the hospital in a very serious condition. We tried our best to save them but they didn't respond to the treatment," said Dr Mahesh, an emergency specialist at the hospital.
The family is from Horamavu, East Bengaluru. Police have sent the bodies to Dr Ambedkar Hospital for a post-mortem.
(With inputs from DHNS)