Assistant Engineer of Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) was arrested by Mumbai Police on Monday evening in connection with the collapse of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus foot-over bridge last month, which killed six people and injured 31.
The arrested has been identified as assistant engineer SF Kakulte, who had supervised repair works of the foot over bridge in 2013-14. He was suspended on March 15, a day after the bridge collapsed.
Executive engineer AR Patil, who had supervised the structural audit of the bridge in 2017-18, was also suspended along with Kakulte. A full-fledged departmental probe was also ordered against them.
A departmental inquiry was also ordered by BMC Commissioner Ajoy Mehta against former chief engineer (bridges) S O Kori and former deputy chief engineer R B Tare, both retired.
A preliminary inquiry report submitted by the BMC on March 15, said these four officers were responsible for poor supervision of the structural audit in 2017-18.
Kakulte is the second person and first BMC employee, who has been arrested in this case. Earlier, on March 18, police arrested Neeraj Kumar Desai, the structural auditor of the foot over bridge.
Desai is also the director of D D Desai’s Associated Engineering Consultants And Analysts Private Ltd the firm which was given the contract to audit the overbridge along with 74 other foot over bridges in the city.
The BMC’s preliminary inquiry report had also accused Desai’s structural audit firm of failing to point out an impending failure and to elaborate the nature and the locations of the minor repairs to be carried out.
Neeraj Kumar Desai is presently in judicial custody. DCP (operations) Manjunath Singe said in a statement that investigation was underway in the matter.
