Penalised Contractor fires At Senior Railway Official

By Express News Service

 01st June 2015 

BHUBANESWAR: The Police Commissionerate on Sunday arrested Chairman of ARSS group of companies Subash Agarwal for his alleged involvement in firing at a Joint General Manager (GM) of Rail Vikash Nigam Limited (RVNL) on Saturday.
Agarwal was produced in the sub-divisional magistrate’s court which rejected his bail and sent him to judicial custody.
Earlier in the day, Agarwal was detained by Chandrasekharpur police on the basis of a complaint lodged by the Joint GM of RVNL Ajay Kumar who was shot at by three miscreants.
Kumar escaped narrowly as the bullet passed close to his leg and pierced his trousers first and then rear seat of the SUV in which he was travelling.

Subash Agarwal

Kumar, in his complaint stated that Agarwal was involved in the attack. “Agarwal had threatened me twice in the past as I had imposed penalties on ARSS for not delivering quality work in a project the firm had taken up,” said Kumar.He added that the work order for developing a broad gauge line between Budhapank station in Angul district to Baghuapal in Jajpur district was awarded to a Ghaziabad based company which had sub-leased the contract to ARSS.
Kumar was transferred to Odisha in 2012 and later appointed as Project Director of the broad gauge project whose estimated cost amounted to `149 crore. Over the last one year, Kumar was not satisfied with the quality of work carried out by ARSS and imposed penalty on the firm’s bills multiple times.
“The sub-lessee did not employ qualified professionals for supervising the work nor did the quality of work was acceptable. I had imposed a penalty of around `22 lakh on four bills of the company,” Kumar told Express.
The Police Commissionerate has pressed its special squad to trace the assailants who shot Kumar.
If sources are to be believed, one among them has already been detained and is being interrogated.