A contractor was arrested last night for the tragic incident on the outskirts of Kolkata, in which three workers lost their lives while cleaning a manhole at the Bantala Leather Complex. The police have arrested contractor Alimuddin Sheikh, who had brought the three labourers to Kolkata for work. According to the victims’ families, it was Sheikh who assigned them the hazardous task of cleaning the manhole without proper safety measures. On Sunday night, Kolkata Leather Complex police arrested him in connection with the deaths.

Sheikh is a contractor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC). The three had been engaged for scavenging and manual cleaning of a sewerage drain pipe within Bantala leather complex on the eastern outskirts of the city.

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Besides this, there is another serious complaint against Alimuddin Sheikh by the family members of the deceased.

They have claimed that the arrested contractor lured the three now deceased workers with promises of engaging them in real estate construction work and thus encouraged them to relocate to Kolkata from their respective districts.

However, the family members have complained, that instead of engaging them in construction work they were given the work of scavenging and manual cleaning of KMC drain pipes.

The police will now investigate why he took advantage of the poverty and ignorance of the three men about the extreme hazards involved in scavenging and manual cleaning of drain pipes.

However, the question that is being asked is whether the responsibility of the KMC ends with the arrest an outsourced contractor?

Questions are also being raised on how the authorities of the largest civic body in West Bengal can avoid the responsibility of monitoring whether their outsourced contractors are engaging labourers in banned hazardous activities and that, too, without adopting the minimum safety norms.

Although KMC authorities have announced that they will provide a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the family of each victim, questions also remain on whether compensation can make up for the loss of human lives.

The matter becomes even more serious since last week, a Bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia ordered a complete ban on manual scavenging and sewage cleaning in six major metropolitan cities including Kolkata.

The apex court directed the heads of the six municipal bodies in these cities to file an affidavit at the apex court by 13 February, explaining the steps taken to stop this practice and how and when the system has been completely stopped in respective cities.

Now, with the next hearing in the matter being scheduled at the apex court on 19 February, KMC insiders feel the authorities might have to face uncomfortable and embarrassing questions there on the day of the next hearing.