Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Jan 27: The Morbi police in Gujarat on Friday filed a 1,262-page charge sheet in the Jhulto Pul suspension bridge collapse case, naming Jaysukh Patel, the managing director of Ajanta Manufacturing Private Limited (AMPL) of OREVA Group, as one of the main accused charged for the incident.
According to the police investigation IG Ashok Yadav, the charge sheet comprises Jaysukh Patel as the main accused and the 9 others, arrested earlier in the case, including two managers at the Oreva Group.
The nine accused are in judicial custody while Patel continues to be at large with a magisterial court issuing an arrest warrant against him on January 13. According to a top police official involved in the probe, they suspect that Patel has not left the country.
According to the probe team, Patel has been arraigned as an accused as all dealings and communications related to the bridge’s repair, operations and management were directly in his authority, and with the recovery of documents from Oreva’s premises in Morbi showing his signatures on all such documents.
Notably, Morbi-based home appliances, clock and e-bike maker Oreva Group was given the contract by the Morbi municipality in March 2022 to repair, and operate the British-era bridge for 15 years and to collect revenue from its ticket sales but the bridge, after undergoing repairs, was thrown open for public on October 26, the Gujarati New Year, by Patel and his family members without informing the Morbi municipality.
The forensic science laboratory (FSL) report has revealed that rusty cables, broken anchor pins, and loose bolts were among the lapses that were not addressed while renovating the suspension bridge as well as Oreva Group did not hire any expert agency to assess the load-bearing capacity of the bridge before throwing it open to the public.
The police said that the final Forensic Science Laboratory report is awaited and has thus not been affixed with the charge sheet.
Earlier on January 24, a Gujarat court had issued a warrant for the arrest of Jaysukh Patel of the Oreva Group in relation to the October 30 bridge collapse in Morbi in which 134 people were killed.
