Mumbai: Another BMC engineer held for CSMT FOB crash

MUMBAI: Police on Tuesday arrested Anil Patil (53), a suspended civic executive engineer, as part of its probe into the collapse of Himalaya foot overbridge (FOB) on March 14, which killed six persons and injured 31.

This is the second arrest of a civic official in the case. On Monday, police had arrested assistant engineer Sandeep Kakulte (44). Public prosecutor Rajan Suryavanshi, while seeking Kakulte’s custody on Tuesday, told the court that he did not visit the FOB during its repairs, maintenance and while a non-destructive test was conducted in the last five years.

“Patil had to supervise the work but he did not,” said a senior police officer. Patil is the third person to be arrested by Azad Maidan police. Earlier, police had arrested Neraj Kumar Desai (48), director of an audit firm, Prof D D Desai’s Associates Engineering Consultants. The firm had carried out the bridge’s structural audit and reported it was fit. Patil was appointed in the bridges department in September 2014 and worked there till December 2018. He was suspended along with Kakulte on March 15, a day after the bridge crash.

Kakulte, a civil engineer, joined BMC in 2005 as a sub-engineer, and worked in the bridges, traffic and roads department until a separate unit for bridges was formed in 2013. Kakulte, who draws around Rs75,000 a month, told court, “I am handicapped and come to office from Virar. I have been requesting seniors to shift me to some other department, but they didn’t. I don’t even have a lawyer.” The court, while remanding him to police custody, told him to engage a lawyer.

Suryavanshi told court, “Kakulte was responsible for visiting sites during repairs, non-destructive tests and maintenance, monitoring work and submitting a report. But he never visited the site or submitted a report. It was his duty to note down changes the auditor or others involved in the work suggested. As per BMC records, he was not present at any site even once.” The court remanded Kakulte to police custody till April 5.

A day after the crash, a preliminary BMC inquiry report nailed the structural auditor, two civic engineers and the contractor who carried out repairs around 2013. Two retired civic bridges department officers, one of who is a former chief engineer, was named too and a full-fledged departmental inquiry was ordered. Kakulte was placed under immediate suspension as he was supervising repairs of the bridge in 2013-14 and was held responsible. The firm that carried out structural repairs in 2013 had been pulled up as its workmanship was not up to the mark and was issued show-cause notices, while civic staff were blamed for lack of supervision.

The prosecutor said police need to establish if Desai had asked Kakulte to do work related to the bridge which he did not note or if he noted, then where were the documents, since he had not submitted any to his office.

An office-bearer of Geo Dynamics, which outsources work of carrying out non-destructive tests of bridges by Desai’s firm, told police Kakulte never visited the site. Repairs of the FOB were done in 2013-14 and in December 2016, an inventory test was carried out and in July 2017, Geo Dynamics conducted the non-destructive test.