Police book BJP leaders after canopy collapse at Modi rally
Kolkata, July 17: A day after a canopy collapsed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally in West Bengal's Midnapore town, injuring nearly 90 people, police on Tuesday booked the rally organisers, the state BJP, for attempted culpable homicide, police said.
"A case has been filed against the organisers of the Prime Minister's event under Section 308 of IPC for attempting to commit culpable homicide. They have also been booked for causing hurt by acts endangering life or personal safety of others," an officer said.
Along with the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the contractor and decorator who built the canopy for Modi's event, has also been booked under the same sections.
A section of the makeshift canopy collapsed minutes after Modi started his address at the Midnapore College ground on Monday afternoon. Ninety people - 24 of them women - were taken to hospital after the accident.
Modi stopped speaking for a few minutes when the structure collapsed to urge the audience to move to a safer area. He also instructed officials to make arrangements for the treatment of the injured.
After the rally, Modi visited the injured in the hospital.
The state forensic team visited the rally ground on Tuesday and pointed out many reasons that might have caused the structure to cave in.
"First, the soft condition of the ground due to rains, the second shallow digging of the iron poles (3-4 inches), the fixing plate had four joints out of which only one was fastened with a nut bolt," said Chitrakhsya Sarkar of state Forensic Science Laboratory.
The state BJP leadership cited rains and overcrowding for the mishap but blamed the police for not taking necessary security measures or controlling the crowd.
"Police did not hold a single meeting with the organisers. The local administration simply overlooked the security aspect of the Prime Minister's meeting. Now they cannot shrug off their responsibility," Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh said.
"It might be due to rains or the pressure of crowd. But the police should have checked the security aspects more diligently," he added.
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Section of TN hotels declare holiday citing shortage of LPG cylinders
Chennai, Mar 11 (PTI): A section of hotels and restaurants operating in Chennai and parts of Tamil Nadu on Wednesday declared a holiday following the lack of commercial LPG supply to the establishments, employees said.
Early morning customers who had come for tea and coffee expressed disappointment over the closure of the hotels and expressed hope that the Centre would take up measures to ease the situation.
"Due to lack of LPG supply, March 11, 2026 has been declared a holiday," a notice displayed in a popular hotel in the city said on Wednesday.
"If this is the case for commercial LPG, then it may impact the domestic LPG supply also. Already, the booking period for domestic gas has been extended from the existing 21 days to 25 days. We do not know what we will do," a resident who had come for a coffee said, after the hotel in Thiyagaraya Nagar declared a holiday.
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On March 10, the hotel association had voiced concern over sustaining their businesses as the existing stock of commercial LPG "would be sufficient to run the outlet only for one or two days".
Most of the restaurants have also cut the number of food items offered to customers and opted to prepare foods that require minimal usage of the commercial LPG cylinders.
"We have prepared idli, sambhar and vada. We have removed dosa varieties. In the afternoon and dinner, the menu will be variety rices only, since dosa and fried rice items require a continuous supply of LPG," a hotel owner in the famous East Coast Road said.
Representatives of Tamil Nadu Hotels Associations, a body representing the hotels and restaurants in the state, called on Chief Minister M K Stalin on March 10 and apprised him about the situation.
Following his interaction with the representatives, Stalin said he had requested the Union government to ensure that the shortage of commercial LPG does not affect the public, commercial establishments or MSMEs.
