Bhubaneswar: Two days after the brutal attack on Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) Additional Commissioner Ratnakar Sahoo in office premises, a high-level meeting was held on Wednesday to review and bolster security arrangements in the building.
Voicing concern over security lapse and defunct gadgets at the BMC headquarters, Mayor Sulochana Das criticised the Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) alleging negligence in security and infrastructure maintenance in the building.
Noting that CCTV cameras at the BMC building have been defunct for a long time, she told reporters that BSCL is officially responsible for building maintenance and surveillance systems.
Das sought to know as to why this issue was not flagged and resolved earlier by the Smart City authorities. If BSCL is unable to handle these responsibilities, they should transfer these tasks to BMC, she said.
Raising questions over the role of security personnel, Das sought to know as to how the miscreants managed to enter the building and attack the senior officer despite the presence of so many security personnel.
It may be noted that the senior OAS officer was assaulted when during a public grievance hearing.
In the wake of the incident that took place on Monday, a high-level meeting was held at the BMC office. It was attended by senior civic and police officials, including Commissioner of Police S Deba Datta Singh, BMC Additional Commissioners Ratnakar Sahu and Shubhendu Sahu, senior officers from the BSCL, members of the security agency, and the standing committee.
The meeting discussed issues relating to security breach, fixing accountability for the malfunctioning CCTV system in the building, and setting corrective measures to avoid recurrence of such incident. The possibility of deploying gunmen at key civic offices was also discussed.
All stakeholders were asked to explain why no preventive mechanism was in place and what steps would be taken going forward.
