A day after more than 130 people died in a bridge collapse in Gujarat’s Morbi, nine people have been arrested. Among them are managers of Oreva, the company that renovated the bridge, ticket collectors, bridge repair contractors and three security guards whose job was to control the crowds.
Gujarat-based Oreva has been accused of violating multiple safety rules, leading to the huge tragedy just four days after the bridge reopened to the public. But none of its top bosses have been arrested. “We won’t let the guilty get away, we won’t spare anyone,” Morbi police chief Ashok Yadav said today.
Soon after signing a 15-year deal with the Morbi civic body, Oreva, a watchmaker, allegedly outsourced the “technical aspect of the bridge renovation” to a smaller company with an unknown record, Devprakash Solutions.
Oreva was hired for repair work on the historic colonial-era bridge in March. The bridge was reopened to the public seven months later, on October 26, when the Gujarati New Year was celebrated. The company was bound by its contract to keep the bridge shut for at least eight to 12 months for maintenance and repairs. It was a “seriously irresponsible and careless gesture” to open the bridge last week, the police said in an FIR that doesn’t name anyone.
Those assigned the repair, maintenance and management of the bridge “did not do the repair/maintenance work” appropriately, the FIR said. They “did not conduct a proper quality check” but were aware of the possibly fatal dangers, it added.
Tickets were sold for ₹ 12 to ₹ 17 yesterday to nearly 500 people, officials said, which resulted in overcrowding on the “hanging bridge”, causing the old metal cables to give way. A few on the bridge were seen in CCTV footage rocking the bridge, which could take the weight of only about 125 people.
The contract allowed the company to raise the ticket prices every year till 2037.
While reopening the bridge last week, Oreva Managing Director Jaysukhbhai Patel had told reporters that the company had completed “100 per cent renovation with two crores”.
He also claimed that the renovated bridge would sustain for “eight to 10 years”. It did not last even a week.
Mr Patel’s own words raised questions about how strong the bridge was. “We also don’t want to overwhelm the sturdiness of the bridge, so to limit the amount of entry and the crowd, we will charge for an entry,” he had said, explaining why the company was selling tickets.
The company also said it is considering requests to open the bridge at night for two hours.
News agency PTI quoted a group spokesperson as stating that the bridge collapsed as “too many people in the mid-section of the bridge were trying to sway it from one way to the other.”
