Arrested for FOB collapse, BMC Engineer Blames Beautification

The BMC executive engineer, arrested for his alleged role in the collapse of the foot overbridge (FOB) outside CSMT last month, has put the blame on beautification of the bridge in 2017. Seven persons died and over 30 were injured when the FOB collapsed on March 14. Anil Patil, the 53-year-old executive engineer in BMC’s bridges department, was arrested by Azad Maidan police on April 2. Last week, his bail plea was rejected by the magistrate court, following which he approached the sessions court. In his bail plea, Patil has said the assistant municipal commissioner of A ward, where the bridge was located, had written to him on November 3, 2016, stating that the municipal commissioner had instructed him to beautify the bridge and the bridges department should give its remarks on the stability of the bridge. “The assistant municipal commissioner, A ward, did not wait for the NOC of the bridges department and started work with utmost haste and hurry on November 9, 2016, for reason best known to him. The work was completed on or about March 31, 2017. The work was being duly and regularly supervised by the assistant municipal commissioner,” Patil’s bail plea states. It adds that the bills of contractors who repaired the bridge were signed by the assistant municipal commissioner. He further claimed he is “not at all well-versed” with the techniques of finding out structural stability and taking inventory of bridges and, hence, the municipal administration had engaged an audit firm, the director of which, Neeraj Desai, is also currently in custody. Patil, Desai and BMC assistant engineer S F Kalkute have so far been arrested in the case.