Owners, top Executives of Gujarat Bridge Renovation Company Vanish

The owners and top executives of Oreva Group, which ‘renovated’ the suspension bridge in Gujarat’s Morbi district, including its managing director Jaysukhbhai Patel, who had claimed on October 24 that people could enjoy “a carefree adventure” on it for 8-10 years, have disappeared.

It has been three days since the British-era bridge, reopened to the public ahead of time without a fitness certificate, collapsed on Sunday, killing 135 people, including 47 children.

Patel, who had claimed at a press conference held to announce the reopening of the bridge that it would sustain for, at least, 8-10 years, disappeared immediately after the tragedy, locals have told NDTV. He and his family were last seen at the bridge’s reopening on October 26. The Group’s Ahmedabad farmhouse is locked and abandoned without even a security guard at the site.

With the tragedy becoming a major embarrassment for the Gujarat and the Narendra Modi governments, Oreva managers Dipak Parekh and Dinesh Dave and subcontractors Prakash Parmar and Devang Parmar were sent to police custody on Tuesday by a Magistrate’s Court till Saturday and five others, including security guards and ticket booking clerks, in judicial custody. A district lawyer’s body has refused to represent any of the accused, according to NDTV.

Opposition parties and locals have accused the state government of making scapegoats out of the security guards, the ticket sellers and low-level employees of Oreva to protect the main accused.

Prosecutor HS Panchal told the court that the contractors who repaired the bridge were not qualified to carry out such work and hadn’t replaced the cables.

Citing the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report, Panchal told the court that forensic experts believed that while the flooring of the bridge was replaced, its cables weren’t. Consequently, they could not take the weight of the changed flooring, NDTV reported.

“Though the FSL report was presented in a sealed cover, it was mentioned during the remand plea that cables of the bridge were not replaced during the renovation and only flooring was changed ... weight of the bridge increased due to the four-layered aluminium sheets for the flooring and the cable snapped due to that weight,” Panchal told the media.

Despite the contractors being “not qualified” to carry out such work, they were “given the repair work of the bridge in 2007 and then in 2022. So the accused’s custody was needed to find out what was the reason for choosing them and at whose instance they were chosen”, Panchal said.

The survivors of the tragedy and the Opposition have questioned the non-inclusion of the names of Oreva owners and top executives and civic officials who signed the contract in the police FIR.

“48 hours after the Morbi tragedy, why is the Gujarat government and the BJP not answering basic questions? Why were the owners of the Oreva company and the municipal authorities not named in the FIR?” former Union finance minister during the UPA rule tweeted.

According to the contract, signed between the Morbi municipal authorities and Ajanta Manufacturing Private Limited, part of the Oreva Group—which manufactures clocks, CFL bulbs and e-bikes—the bridge should have been shut for, at least, 8-12 months for maintenance and repairs.

However, Oreva, which was hired to maintain the bridge for 15 years, reopened it ahead of schedule on the Gujarati New Year on October 26, the contract, accessed by NDTV, shows. Besides, the “technical aspect of the renovation” was outsourced to a smaller construction company called Devprakash Solutions.

The contract did not even mention the requirement of a fitness certificate before the bridge was reopened to the public. Moreover, Oreva allegedly started selling Rs 17 entry tickets to the bridge without a fitness certificate from the civic authorities, according to NDTV. Morbi municipal agency chief officer Sandipsinh Zala confirmed to NDTV on Sunday that Oreva did not take a fitness certificate.