Detained manager states in court: bridge collapse "Will Of God"

Morbi, Gujarat: One of the accused in the 135-fatality Gujarat bridge collapse catastrophe said in court that it was the "will of God" that the incident occurred.

The manager of the Oreva company, which was in charge of maintaining the 150-year-old bridge, Deepak Parekh, made the remark. He is one of the nine people who were detained following Sunday's bridge collapse.

"It was bhagwan ki ichcha (the will of God) that such an unfortunate event happened," he told Chief Judicial Magistrate MJ Khan.

The rope of the bridge was "rusted," according to Morbi Deputy Superintendent of Police PA Zala, and had not been replaced by the company that restored it.

On October 26, the bridge was reopened to the public without any official review or quality assurance. "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.

The contractors who repaired the bridge, a prosecutor said the judge, lacked the necessary training for maintaining public infrastructure, NDTV reported.

"Despite that, these contractors were given repair work of the bridge in 2007 and then in 2022," the prosecutor said.

The cables broke because they were not changed and could not support the weight of the new flooring. Due to the usage of four-layered aluminium sheets for the flooring, the weight of the bridge had increased.

Locals have told NDTV that Oreva's managing director Jaysukhbhai Patel, who had previously stated in public that the reconstructed bridge will last for at least eight to ten years, has not been seen since the disaster. Mr Patel and his family were last seen at the bridge's reopening.