In the first arrest made in connection with the collapse of a 35-foot statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in Maharashtra's Sindhudurg district, a structural consultant has been has been taken into custody.
Chetan Patil, a resident of Kolhapur, was taken into custody late on Thursday night and handed over to the Sindhudurg police for further investigation, said Kolhapur Superintendent of Police Mahendra Pandit, news agency PTI reported.
Patil's arrest comes despite his claims of limited involvement in the project. In an interview with Marathi news channel ABP Majha on Wednesday, Patil said he had only submitted the design of the platform to the Indian Navy through the state's Public Works Department (PWD) and had nothing to do with the statue itself.
"A Thane-based company did the statue-related work. I was just asked to work on the platform on which the statue was being erected," Patil claimed.
However, Patil's name appeared in the FIR registered in connection with the collapse, along with artist Jaydeep Apte.
The statue, unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Rajkot fort in Malvan tehsil of Sindhudurg on Navy Day (December 4) last year, collapsed around 1 pm on Monday.
According to the Bureau of Indian Standards, even though officials have claimed that winds blowing at speeds of 45 kilometres an hour caused the collapse, however wind speeds up to almost three times are accounted for while designing a structure.
"In this statue's case, external factors such as loads or climatic conditions do not appear to have caused trouble. Rather, corrosion in the nuts and bolts, as mentioned in the PWD report, could have caused a failure of steel members making up the frame inside the statue," Amresh Kumar, a structural engineer, told news agency PTI.
Following the incident, the opposition parties have cornered the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led state government, alleging that it had paid little attention to the quality of work.
NCP (SP) state president and former minister Jayant Patil said, "The state government is responsible for the collapse, as it did not take proper care. The government paid little attention to the quality of work. It only focused on conducting an event where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was invited to unveil the statue."
Shinde has said that the statue was designed and constructed by the Indian Navy. The Navy has dispatched a team of experts to investigate the cause of the collapse.
