Police receives inquiry report, audit papers
Mumbai: The Azad Maidan police Saturday received the inquiry report and documents of the audit report pertaining to collapse of the illfated Himalaya foot overbridge (FOB) from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
The FOB, located near the BMC headquarters, which was stated to be in bad condition, came crashing Thursday evening, killing six persons and injuring 31 others.
Officials said that the investigating team was studying documents ahead of recording the statement of D.D. Desai of Associated Engineering Consultants and Analysts Pvt. Ltd., who submitted the fudged report following the inspection on August 13, 2018 and four other engineers who have been named by the BMC in their inquiry findings submitted to the police.
The BMC findings mentioned Desai along with RPS Infraprojects Pvt. Ltd. along with four BMC engineers — the then chief engineer S.O. Kori, deputy chief engineer RB Tare (both retired), executive engineers A.R. Patil and AI Engineer, and assistant engineer S.F. Kakulte who were part of the audit process, officials said.
“We are studying the documents of the audit and inspection to ascertain on what grounds the bridge was categorised as ‘G’ that denoted it to be in a good condition,” said a police officer privy to the investigation.
Investigators will also probe to ascertain if there were any other factors for the report to be fudged. The police also collected samples of materials from the crash site for forensic analysis, the police said. The investigators will soon summon all the accused for recording their statements, police said.