RAJKOT: Oreva Group’s promoter and CMD Jaysukh Patel surrendered on Tuesday in the Morbi chief judicial magistrate’s court and was promptly taken into police custody, capping three months of suspense over his whereabouts since 135 people died in the collapse of the city’s rickety, British-era suspension footbridge under his company’s watch.
Patel, whose clockmaking unit Ajanta Manufacturing Pvt Ltd had been contracted to maintain and operate the bridge, turned himself in just a day before the Morbi court is scheduled to hear his anticipatory bail plea. News of his surrender led family members of many of the victims to converge on the court premises.
Tempers flared as Patel was being taken away
Relatives of the victims shouted slogans against him. Emotions spilled over and tempers flared as some tried to waylay the police van in which Jaysukh Patel was being taken away, accusing the cops of shielding him and demanding that he be made to relive the horrors of October 30. Patel wasn’t even officially a person of interest in the case until an arrest warrant was issued against him by the chief judicial magistrate on January 13 for not replying to a police summons and remaining incommunicado. The police filed a chargesheet last Friday, accusing him and nine others of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, among other charges.
Soon after Patel’s expected surrender, the investigation officer in the case filed a plea seeking his custody. The court’s order came in the evening. Seven of Patel’s co-accused – Oreva Group managers Deepak Parekh and Dinesh Dave, ticketing clerks Mahadev Solanki and Mansukh Topiya, and security guards Alpesh Gohil, Dilip Gohil and Mukesh Chauhan – Tuesday filed bail pleas that will be heard on February 2. The special investigation team (SIT) constituted by the state government to probe the bridge collapse found that Oreva Group had sub-contracted a firm without the requisite credentials, DevPrakash Solutions, to renovate the bridge. The repairs were shoddy and Patel’s company reopened the bridge to the public a few days before last Diwali without carrying out safety tests, the SIT said.
Patel, whose clockmaking unit Ajanta Manufacturing Pvt Ltd had been contracted to maintain and operate the bridge, turned himself in just a day before the Morbi court is scheduled to hear his anticipatory bail plea. News of his surrender led family members of many of the victims to converge on the court premises.
Tempers flared as Patel was being taken away
Relatives of the victims shouted slogans against him. Emotions spilled over and tempers flared as some tried to waylay the police van in which Jaysukh Patel was being taken away, accusing the cops of shielding him and demanding that he be made to relive the horrors of October 30. Patel wasn’t even officially a person of interest in the case until an arrest warrant was issued against him by the chief judicial magistrate on January 13 for not replying to a police summons and remaining incommunicado. The police filed a chargesheet last Friday, accusing him and nine others of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, among other charges.
Soon after Patel’s expected surrender, the investigation officer in the case filed a plea seeking his custody. The court’s order came in the evening. Seven of Patel’s co-accused – Oreva Group managers Deepak Parekh and Dinesh Dave, ticketing clerks Mahadev Solanki and Mansukh Topiya, and security guards Alpesh Gohil, Dilip Gohil and Mukesh Chauhan – Tuesday filed bail pleas that will be heard on February 2. The special investigation team (SIT) constituted by the state government to probe the bridge collapse found that Oreva Group had sub-contracted a firm without the requisite credentials, DevPrakash Solutions, to renovate the bridge. The repairs were shoddy and Patel’s company reopened the bridge to the public a few days before last Diwali without carrying out safety tests, the SIT said.
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