Trinamool spokesperson Saket Gokhale arrested over Morbi bridge collapse tweet

Trinamool Congress spokesperson Saket Gokhale has reportedly been arrested by the Gujarat police. Trinamool MP Derek O’Brien has said that the arrest was made by the Gujarat Police over a tweet by Gokhale on the Morbi bridge collapse. 

O’Brien said that RTI-activist-turned-politician was travelling from Delhi to Jaipur. When he landed, Gujarat Police was waiting for him at the airport, and arrested him. He reportedly called his mother and informed her about the development and said that he is being taken to Ahmedabad, where he will reach today noon. 

His phone was confiscated after the phone call, along with his belongings. 

O’Brien called it a “cooked up case”, and said that BJP’s political vendetta has been taken to another level.

While the Trinamool MP did not specify which tweet he was talking about, the PIB had recently fact checked one of Gokhale’s tweets.  In the tweet, Gokhale had said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Morbi for a few hours cost Rs 30 crore. 

Out of the Rs 30 crore, Rs 5.5 crore was simply for “welcome, event management and photography”. He compared that to the Rs 4 lakh ex-gratia that the kin of the 135 victims received, amounting to a total of Rs 5 crore. “Just Modi’s event management and PR costs more than life of 135 people,” he said in the tweet.

PIB fact-checked the tweet and said that the claim is false and that no such RTI response was issued. 

The Morbi bridge tragedy resulted in the death of over 130 people on October 30 when the bridge collapsed. The bridge collapsed due to lapse in maintenance. It was also found that the new metal flooring increased the weight of the bridge. Moreover, the repairing contractors were not qualified to carry out such repair and renovation. Nine people were arrested in the case. 

Also read: Morbi bridge collapse: 3,165 tickets were sold to visitors on day of accident, says report

Also read: Morbi bridge collapse: HC raps Gujarat govt over compensation given to kin of victims