Judge rejects bail for NHA officials, consultant
The NHA chairman and member of its planning department applied with the member of the Engineering Consultants International Limited (ECIL) in the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Gulshan Ara Chandio on Wednesday. ECIL is the consultant company for the Shershah bridge project.
They were taken into custody on Saturday when the interim charge sheet, submitted by DIG Iftikhar Tarar absolving the accused men of any role in the bridge collapse, was rejected. The verdict held was that the police had supported the accused during reinvestigations, while the police had found evidence against the under-trial accused in the earlier charge sheet and investigations.
The first investigation was ordered by the then prime minister Shaukat Aziz while the reinvestigation was ordered by the CCPO Karachi after Altaf moved an application, alleging that the investigation officer of the case falsely implicated the accused due to pressure from government officials after the tragic loss of lives in the collapse.
The CCPO, granting the application, ordered that a senior officer - not below the rank of an SSP - shall reinvestigate the matter. DIG Iftikhar Hussain Tarar then investigated the case and on the previous hearing, absolved the accused of charges as “no cogent evidence was available against them”.
On September 1, 2007, a part of the then newly-constructed Northern Bypass bridge in Shershah collapsed, barely a month after its inauguration by former president Pervez Musharraf on August 6, 2007. Fourteen people were injured and six cars were destroyed in the collapse of a section of the one-kilometre-long bridge. A sharp curve in the faulty design was said to be the reason for the collapse.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 11th, 2010.
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