The Gujarat government on Monday transferred three senior police officers and a top civic official in Rajkot after a fire at a gaming arcade killed 33 persons, the Hindustan Times reported.
The state government replaced Rajkot Police Commissioner Raju Bhargava with Indian Police Service officer Brijesh Kumar Jha.
Additional Commissioner of Police (administration, traffic and crime) Vidhi Choudhary and Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone 2) Sudhirkumar J Desai have also been transferred, the newspaper reported.
The Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state also transferred Rajkot Municipal Commissioner Anand Patel, and appointed DP Desai, the chief executive officer of the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority, in the place.
Earlier on Monday, the state government had suspended six officials in connection with the fire. Four of them are civic officers and two are police inspectors.
The officials were found responsible for “gross negligence in allowing this game zone to operate without necessary approvals”, the government said.
The fire broke out on Saturday evening at a temporary structure at the TRP Game Zone in Rajkot. While locals said that the blaze spread quickly following a short circuit in an air conditioner, officials said that a more detailed investigation was required. Nine children were killed in the fire.
The transfer of senior police and civic officials came after the Gujarat High Court on Monday said it did “not trust” the state government anymore, NDTV reported.
“Have you gone blind?” the court asked. “Did you fall asleep? Now we do not trust the local system and the state.”
The court said that all municipal commissioners in Rajkot from the time the gaming zone was established in 2021 till May 25 “should be held accountable for the tragedy”, the Hindustan Times reported. The court directed each of the commissioners to submit a reply in the matter.
The bench also expressed a lack of faith in the “state machinery which gets into action only after innocent lives are lost”.
The state government has set up a special investigation team to probe the incident.
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