Mumbai: Three employees of P305 arrested in barge sinking case

MUMBAI: City’s Yellow Gate police station, probing the sinking of ill-fated barge Paapa 305 or P305 during the cyclone Tautkae, late on Friday arrested three employees of P305. As many as 261 crew members were onboard when the barge began sinking on May 17. While most of them were rescued by the Indian Navy warships INS Kochi and INS Kolkata, 71 died after the barge drowned.
The arrested include Nitin Sinha, director of P305 shipping company, Akhileshwar Tiwari, technical superintendent and Prasad Rane, manager. They have been arrested for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and will be interrogated in police custody.
The Yellow Gate police, the prime Port police station in the city which has its jurisdiction upto 300 nautical miles in the sea, had registered an FIR on May 20 against Rakesh Ballav, P305’s captain and several others for capable homicide not amounting to murder. Ballav had also died in the mishap and his body was claimed by his relatives three weeks after the incident. The complainant, Mustafizur Rehman Shaikh, a survivor who was engineer on the barge, had alleged that he had repeatedly requested the captain to give distress call signal for help but Ballav delayed it for more than 10 to 12 hours. Many crew members had jumped into the sea to save their lives. The barge sank by May 17 evening.
Investigations have also found that Ballav, had on May 14 sent a WhatsApp message to his company informing that they had removed the barge 175 meters away from the platform and that it was safe, said a police officer. Investigators, who have recorded statements of dozens of survivors from P305, said that at 11.30pm on May 16 the barge began drifting during cyclone Tautkae.
Police had taken blood samples of relatives of some missing / deceased to identify the decomposed bodies. So far, 67 bodies have been identified and handed over to families. Four are still lying at the JJ Hospital mortuary which are yet to be identified. The police have so far recorded statements of 55 people from different companies in this case.