Three arrested for P305 barge tragedy

A file picture of a crew member from P305 rescued by the Navy

The Yellow Gate Police on Saturday arrested three persons for negligence in the case of Papaa-305 (P305), the barge that sank in the Arabian Sea amid Cyclone Tauktae, leading to the loss of 86 lives.

All the arrested accused are employees of Papaa Shipping Company, including manager Prasad Ganpat Rane, director Nitin Dinanath Singh and technical superintendent Akhileshwar Tiwari. The trio has been booked under sections 304 (2), 338 and 34 of the IPC.

In May, the police had registered a case against Barge P-305's Captain Rakesh Ballav and several others, for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Ballav also died in the incident.

In his complaint, Barge P-305 engineer Mustafizur Shaikh, who survived the tragedy, had said that he had repeatedly requested Ballav to give a distress call, but the captain delayed it by more than 10 hours.

According to the information received from the police, the arrested accused Rane, Singh and Tiwari have been arrested for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, endangering life or personal safety of others.

Speaking to mid-day, a police officer said, "The authority concerned had already issued a cyclone alert. Despite this, the arrested accused did not ask the crew members to return. We have recorded the statement of 63 crew members, and booked the accused for negligence." The officer added that they are investigating the matter further.

When contacted, Mumbai Police spokesperson DCP Chaitnya S said, "The court has given police remand of the accused till July 8."

Barge P-305 had a total of 261 personnel at the time of the incident, out of which 186 personnel were rescued by the Indian Navy and Coast Guard. Seventy five people were declared dead, out of which eight employees are still missing, while the bodies of four people have not been identified yet.