In a major mishap at least eight persons were injured as an elevator crashed at the recently opened Hotel Ramada at Bistupur on Tuesday morning. The incident left people panicking as Chief Minister Hemant Soren was staying at the hotel and had got down from the fifth floor of the hotel by another elevator minutes before the crash.
Those injured include officer-in-charge of Bistupur police station Jitendra Kumar, pilot of a chopper Amit Kumar, chief minister's political advisor Himanshu Shekhar Chaudhary, and his personal assistant Pawan Kumar. The rest of the injured were JMM workers and they were identified as Raja Mandal, Mita Sarkar and Ganesh Chaudhury. All the injured were rushed to the Tata Main Hospital's emergency, where four of them were released after preliminary check up.
The incident took place at around 11.35 am as eight persons, including JMM's woman activist got into the elevator at the fifth floor of the hotel and were about to get down after the chief minister had left his room. As the elevator collapsed, activist Mita Sarkar yelled in fear, attracting the attention of yet another JMM activist who was waiting for the lift on the fifth floor. The activist rushed down through stairs and yelled for help drawing attention of the hotel staff.
"We had a fall from the fifth floor after the lift's door was shut.We could not know what was happening. It is a matter of investigation," said officer-in-charge, Kumar. The elevator which crashed today had a capacity of carrying 10 persons at a time but surprisingly the mishap took place even with eight persons in the lift. When contacted, general manager, Hotel Ramada, Shailesh Terry, confirmed that there was a free fall in one of the two elevators at the hotel today.
"It is too early as to what led to the mishap. We have sought explanation from the management of Big Boss, the elevator company which had installed it," he said. The Chief Minister and JMM supremo Shibu Soren had checked in at the hotel late last night for campaigning in Jamshedpur lok Sabha seat. later, Hemant Soren visited Tata Main Hospital to meet the injured. "We all are safe at the hotel. One of the elevators at Hotel Ramada where I and Guruji had stayed while campaigning in Jamshedpur crashed. There was some technical flaws which led to the mishap," said Hemant.