India police cost 10 with murder over bridge collapse that killed 135

By Sumit Khanna

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) – Police in India on Friday charged 10 folks with murder in reference to the collapse of a colonial-era footbridge final yr that killed a minimum of 135 folks, a high official instructed Reuters.

The 145-year-old suspension bridge within the city of Morbi was filled with sightseers when it collapsed on Oct. 30, plunging tons of into the Machchhu river under. It had reopened after repairs simply days earlier than.

Many of the victims had been ladies and youngsters who drowned.

Police within the western state of Gujarat have issued an arrest warrant for the boss of the corporate that managed the bridge and on Friday named him as the primary accused in a cost sheet filed in a Morbi court docket, stated Ashok Kumar Yadav, a high state police official.

Jaysukh Patel, the managing director of the Oreva Group, greatest recognized for making clocks and electrical merchandise, was absconding and a lookout round was issued for him final week to stop him from leaving the nation, police stated.

The Oreva Group didn’t reply to emailed queries looking for remark. Patel’s cell phone was switched off and textual content messages despatched to him couldn’t be delivered.

Apart from Patel, the greater than 1,200-page cost sheet names two managers of the Oreva Group, two ticketing clerks, three safety guards and two folks from a agency contracted by Oreva to restore the bridge earlier than it reopened to the general public, stated Yadav.

(Writing by Shivam Patel in New Delhi; Enhancing by Robert Birsel)