Bengal Sports Minister lost his chair over ruckus at Messi's event
State Bureau, Jagran, Kolkata. Bengal Sports Minister Arup Biswas lost his chair in the case of mismanagement of Argentina's legendary footballer Leon Messi's program at Salt Lake Stadium, he had to resign from his post on Tuesday. He wrote a letter to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee saying that he wanted to relieve himself from the post for an impartial investigation into the matter.
The Chief Minister has accepted his resignation and has kept the Sports Department with himself for the time being. Despite resigning, Biswas will continue as minister as he still has the responsibility of power and housing departments.
Biswas is accused of continuously surrounding Messi with his people on the day of the event, due to which the people sitting in the spectator gallery could not see their favorite footballer and started creating ruckus.
Based on the report of the inquiry committee headed by Justice (retd) Asim Kumar Rai, the Bengal government has issued a show cause notice to Principal Secretary of Sports Department Rajesh Kumar Sinha, Director General (DG) of State Police Rajeev Kumar and Bidhannagar Commissionerate Police Commissioner (CP) Mukesh Kumar in the mismanagement case. They have been asked to respond to the notice within 24 hours.
On the other hand, Bidhannagar Deputy Commissioner (DC) Anish Sarkar has been suspended. A departmental inquiry has also been ordered against him. They will remain suspended until the investigation continues.
At the same time, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Salt Lake Stadium, Devkumar Nandan has been dismissed. The investigation committee in its report has stated that the incident was due to gross negligence of the sports and police departments.
The committee said that the officials responsible for the stadium did not perform their duties properly. On the recommendations of the committee, the Bengal government has constituted a four-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the case, which includes ADG (Law and Order) Javed Shamim, ADG (South Bengal) Supratim Sarkar, CP Muralidhar Sharma of Barrackpore Commissionerate and Chief Minister's Security Director Piyush Pandey.
6,000 additional VIP passes were distributed
6,000 additional VIP passes were distributed for Messi's event and 500 additional 'Field of Play' passes to visit the ground were distributed. The Intelligence Department of Bidhannagar Commissionerate Police has made this revelation. It has also emerged that these passes were distributed at the last minute, many of which had the stamps of various government departments.