One of the accused arrested in the Morbi bridge collapse case in which over 140 people lost their lives told a local court that the tragedy was “the will of God”. The comment was made by Deepak Parekh, manager of Oreva company that was responsible for the maintenance of the 140-year-old bridge. He is one of the nine people arrested in the case.
“It was Bhagwan ki ichcha that such an unfortunate event happened,” he told Chief Judicial Magistrate MJ Khan. Morbi Deputy Superintendent of Police PA Zala told the court that the cable of the bridge was “rusted” and had not been replaced by the company that renovated it.
The bridge was reopened to the public on October 26 without government approval or quality testing. As part of maintenance and repair, only the platform was changed.
“The bridge was on a cable and no oiling or greasing of the cable was done. From where the cable broke, the cable was rusted. Had the cable been repaired, the incident would not have happened,” the police officer said.
A public prosecutor told the judge that the contractors who carried out the bridge repairs were not qualified for the maintenance of public infrastructure.
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