- Friday, March 07, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Days after the collapse of a suspension bridge in Morbi in the western Indian state of Gujarat resulting the deaths of 135 people, Deepak Parekh, a manager of the Oreva, the private company responsible for the maintenance of the structure, told a local court that the incident was “the will of God”.
Parekh is one of the nine people arrested after the tragedy in which several hundreds fell into the Machchu river.
“It was bhagwan ki ichcha (the will of God) 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Morbi deputy superintendent of police PA Zala told the court that the cable of the bridge was “rusted” and had not been replaced by the company that was responsible for its renovation.
The ill-fated bridge was reopened to the public on October 26, just four days before the accident allegedly without the 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, according to an NDTV report.
A prosecutor told the judge that the contractors who carried out the repair work were not qualified for public infrastructure maintenance.
“Despite that, these contractors were given repair work of the bridge in 2007 and then in 2022,” the prosecutor was quoted as saying.
Since the cables were not replaced, they caved in under the weight of the new flooring. It was said that the weight of its new flooring.
Oreva’s managing director Jayasukhbhai Patel, who had claimed that the renovated bridge would last for at least eight to 10 years, has reportedly disappeared after the tragedy. He was last seen at the reopening of the bridge, along with his family.
The company’s farmhouse in Ahmedabad was found to be abandoned.
