Following the arrest of five people in connection with the explosion that killed six in a quarry in Chikkaballapura, police have made another arrest. GS Nagaraj, also a local BJP leader who was earlier absconding, was arrested in Hosur, Tamil Nadu late on Wednesday.
Three more partners of the mining firm Sri Bhramavasini Sanders, Raghavendra Reddy, Venkatashiva Reddy and Madhusudhan Reddy, were nabbed by police on Wednesday as well, along with Mohammad Riyaz Ansari, the driver of the vehicle carrying the explosives.
Six people were killed when they were trying to dispose of explosives at the quarry site in Gudibande in the district at 12.15 am on Tuesday. They were identified as Gangadhar Babu, Abhilash Nayak, Muralikrishna, Mahesh Singh Bora (a Nepali national), Umamahesh and quarry supervisor Ramu.
Police in Chikkaballapura said that the quarry was sealed off on February 7, two weeks before the incident, following a suo motu investigation. "After a raid at the quarry, it was shut down and not functional. We had seized explosives from the site," a police official said.
They added that a driller machine was seized from the quarry on February 22, the day before the blast, following which the owner of the quarry tipped off his site engineer to dispose of unused explosives at the quarry site. The police did not arrest quarry owners on this day as they had not seized the explosives.
Police said that the owners of the quarry were aware of the plan to dispose of the explosives. They also tasked the site engineer Umamahesh and with five others with the job. Umamahesh consulted Ganesh, who has been working as a blaster at the site for around 4 years.
Riaz, driving a Tata Ace vehicle, along with the others, took the explosives in a plastic bag to an area away from the quarry site. A fire was lit to dispose of the explosives. This was when the gelatin accidentally exploded and killed six people. Riaz, who was in the vehicle when the blast occurred, suffered grievous injuries and is currently hospitalised. The others involved in disposing of the gelatin were confirmed dead on the spot.
The impact of the blast had scattered their bodies 20 metres away and caused them to be mutilated beyond recognition. An FIR was registered at the Gudibande police station charging the quarry owners under section 286 (negligent conduct with explosive substances) of the IPC and under sections of the Explosives Act and Explosive Substances Act.
The incident comes a month after a similar blast at a quarry site in Shivamogga on January 22, which killed six people.
The police have undertaken a drive to inspect quarry sites since the incident in Shivamogga. The Karnataka High Court had passed orders asking the state government to inform whether it will be carrying out a survey of all quarries in the state in a phased manner, and whether any action of determination of lease/licenses was taken in 2020. The state government is instructed to inform the High Court about the matter on March 8.