Bridge collapse: Builder remanded in police custody
Judicial Magistrate Malik Shafique Ahmed on Friday granted four-day physical remand of Khalid Rauf, owner of a construction company that built the pedestrian bridge on Ring Road that collapsed on Thursday. A truck driver died in the incident.
North Cantonment police had sought a 10-day physical remand alleging use of substandard material.
Rauf said he alone could not be held responsible for the bridge.
He said at least four agencies that had inspected and cleared the bridge after the construction should be treated similarly.
He said the bridge had been built three years ago and that under the contract the builder was responsible for its maintenance for only one year. He also said the case was a malafide attempt to “humiliate a taxpayer”.
His counsel submitted that the bridge collapse was caused by an accident and not because of any substandard material used in its construction. Had the truck’s ‘bucket’ not collided with the bridge, he said, it wouldn’t have fallen. He contended that Section 302 did not apply in this case.
He also said his client had done a lot of Ring Road work and never charged with substandard construction.
The prosecution said that the fatal collapse was a result of “sheer negligence” by the builder and accused him of using substandard material.
The FIR was registered on Thursday by Col (retired) Asim, the Ring Road operations and maintenance director. Soon after the incident, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had visited the scene and ordered an inquiry.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 30th, 2012.
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@Fahmeed: I have taken the Ring Road in Lahore and I dispute your claim that the road is in any way substandard. If anything most commuters, myself included appreciate the ease and comfort of the Ring Road which is better than most roads in Asia. As for a truck hitting a pedestrian bridge, do you want the pedestrian bridges to be made of re enforced steel concrete to withstand unreasonable strains? Where in the world do they make bridges that withstand being hit by trucks and planes? The Karachi bridge which collapsed on its own was substandard but this Lahore pedestrian bridge was hit by a truck driver due to negligence. Understand the difference.
An ordinary man lost his life, yet the culprit should be protected. The quality of materials used and the workmanship involved in the construction of the bridge is dubious. Various sections of Lahore ring road clearly shows inferior quality of materials used in the construction of the ring road project. The service road constructed parallel to the ring road has also started breaking up, please visit the roads constructed near the roundabout to witness yourself, near the new airport starting from Abullha Gul interchange, moving parallel to Phase 8, Defense have already started breaking up, this road was constructed by the same construction company. About 5 years ago a newly constructed bridge/fly over went down in Karachi and now in Lahore. How many bridges need to fall and how many innocent Pakistanis need to die. The responsible should be brought forward and justice should prevail.
Why should the owner of the construction company be held or remanded when we know it is the fault of the driver who drive into the bridge with his open truck bucket? In North America, no bridge could withstand such force and would be damaged by a truck barrelling and hitting it with such force. It's sad that in Pakistan no one understand that driver negligence is to blame and drivers should start to behave responsibly instead of blaming the government for their own behaviour.