Morbi bridge collapse: Court rejects further remand of 4 accused

A district court in Morbi on Saturday rejected the further remand application of four of the suspects arrested in the case of suspension bridge collapse that killed 135 people on October 30. All the suspects were sent to jail under judicial custody.

The police had produced the suspects before the court of chief judicial magistrate M J Khan and sought further remand. Government pleader H S Panchal said, after court proceedings, that police wanted further custody to cross verify in the presence of the accused of documents collected from Morbi and Rajkot collectorates.

Panchal said that court also rejected prosecution's plea seeking a stay on rejection of further remand. The four suspects who were arrested on October 31 and were sent in police remand for custodial interrogations are Prakash Parmar, Devang Parmar, Dipak Parekh and Dinesh Dave.

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Prakash and Devang are associated with Dhrangadhra (Surendranagar) based firm-Devprakash Solutions, which was handed over the sub-contract of bridge repair work. Dipak and Dinesh are managers of Oreva group, the clock-making firm which had the contract of bridge repair, maintenance and management.

Oreva group's owner Jaysukh Patel had himself said that he gave the contract of bridge repair work to the Dhrangadhra based firm. Patel is reported to have gone missing and is yet to be questioned by the police.

There are five other accused who are under judicial custody including two ticket clerks and three security guards identified as Mansukh Topia, Mahadev Solanki, Alpesh Gohil, Dilip Gohil and Mukesh Chauhan.

On November 1, one of the accused managers of Oreva group, Dipak Parekh, had defended himself by saying that he was only responsible for managing the media and graphic design department of the company. He also told the court that the incident was "an act of God".

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During their remand hearing, investigating officer, Deputy Superintendent of Police, P A Zala, and public prosecutor, Panchal, had revealed Dhrangadhra-based firm didn't have "qualified engineers" to do the repair work.

They said that in the name of repair, only wooden flooring were replaced by aluminum sheets while the cables were not changed. It was said that the contractors didn't even oil or grease the cable despite the fact that the bridge was renovated last in 2007.

"It is suspected that the bridge snapped due to being overweight since wooden flooring was replaced by aluminium sheet," assistant public prosecutor Panchal had argued in the court.

Meanwhile, the state government on Friday suspended the chief officer of Morbi municipality, Sandeepsinh Zala who had first claimed that the bridge was opened for the public without a "fitness certificate." Zala was also questioned by the police.