CSMT FOB collapse: Second chargesheet filed

Mumbai: The police on Thursday filed a second chargesheet in the Himalaya Bridge collapse case. As per the chargesheet a forensic report from a city-based engineering college has claimed that the bridge collapsed due to heavy corrosion.

The Azad Maidan police, who are probing the incident, have arrested four persons including Neeraj Desai, owner of the firm that carried out the structural audit of the bridge and three other BMC officers. The arrested BMC officers are suspended executive engineer A.R. Patil, assistant engineer S.F. Kakulte and retired chief engineer (bridge) Shitalprasad Kori. All these accused are in judicial custody charged under section 304 (2) (causing death by negligence) of IPC.

The police have already filed a 709-pages chargesheet against Desai on May 9, which has statements of 83 witnesses. On Thursday the police filed 306-page second chargesh-eet that includes statements of 90 witnesses.

Police had asked experts from the government-run Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI) to conduct a forensic analysis. Now the police cited the forensic report in a supplementary chargesheet filed in a local court on Thursday.

The chargesheet cited the report as saying that the bridge collapsed due to heavy corrosion and that the thickness of iron parts had decreased from 15 mm to 2 mm, it said.

The chargesheet also said that there was a lack of supervision on the part of Kori, the then chief engineer.

Himalaya Bridge, outside Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) collapsed during the peak hour of March 14 killing seven people and injuring 30.

In October 2016, then BMC commissioner Ajoy Mehta had visited the FoB and asked for its beautification under the Swachha Bharat Abhiyan. A letter was sent to executive engineer Patil, asking him to examine structural stability of the bridge before the beautification work was undertaken. Patil did not act on it, the chargesheet alleged.