The Kolkata police on Thursday sealed the local office of IVRCL, a Hyderabad-based company, which had taken up the construction work a flyover

Kolkata: The Kolkata police on Thursday sealed the local office of IVRCL, a Hyderabad-based company, which had taken up the construction work a flyover here, a portion of which collapsed on a congested road intersection killing 18 people.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Debasish Boral told reporters that the local office of the company has been sealed and an FIR has been registered under IPC sections 304 (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 308 (attempt cto commit culpable homicide) and 407 (criminal breach of trust by carrier, etc).

A representative of the construction firm, Panduranga Rao, described the accident as an ‘Act of God’. IVRCL was appointed by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) to build the flyover. The firm was unable to ascertain the immediate cause of the collapse, but it said this bridge was the "toughest project of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewable Mission (JNNURM) project under the KMDA".

The company had made it clear on various occasions that the project was a very difficult undertaking due to the congested area of the intersection, which hampered the movement of the heavy equipment used for construction, according to its website.

The Vivekananda flyover has been facing issues since the operations began in December 2009. The construction is years behind schedule and as of March 2016, over 25 percent of the work was still pending, report in The Times of India said.

The Rs 164-crore project was supposed to be completed by 2012 but issues with land acquisition has delayed its completion. The Times of India report further added that the project that was to be completed by March 2016 was scheduled for August 2016 for completion.

The design has been changed several times and the residents living around the construction even went to court as the flyover was inching dangerously close to their homes.

A 2014 report from The Telegraph said that IVRCL, the company responsible for building the flyover, wanted to wash its hands off the project as it was cash-strapped and running 42 months behind schedule, with only 69 per cent of the work done.

With inputs from PTI