Mumbai Police Crime Branch team brings Bhavesh Bhinde, an accused in the Ghatkopar hoarding collapse case, from Udaipur, at the Mumbai Airport on Thursday late night, May 16, 2024. Bhinde's company put up the giant billboard in Ghatkopar whose collapse claimed 16 lives.
Credit: PTI Photo
An absconding director of the advertising firm which installed the collapsed hoarding in Mumbai's Ghatkopar was arrested on Thursday from Rajasthan 3 days after the tragic accident. The death toll in the crash mounted to 16 after bodies of a former GM of Mumbai airport ATC and his wife were retrieved from the wreckage, officials said.
Bhavesh Bhinde was on the run since the news of the billboard crash and subsequent deaths broke. Bhinde is one of the directors of the advertising agency that put up the massive billboard that crashed onto a petrol pump in suburban Ghatkopar on Monday evening. He was arrested from Rajasthan's Udaipur, a police official said.
After the tragedy, a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under the IPC was registered at the Pant Nagar Police Station against Bhinde, all directors of the advertising agency Ego Media, its officials and employees, officials had said earlier.
A team of Mumbai Police's crime branch apprehended Bhinde, who was on the run after the tragedy three days ago, he said.
According to a report in NDTV, Bhinde was arrested after a manhunt that spanned three states.
Soon after the hoarding fell, police were on the look for Bhinde, who went on the run as soon as he realised authorities were following him.
Bhinde allegedly kept moving from one placed to another and also took up a false identity to evade capture.
Authorities went from Lonavala to Thane to Ahmedabad before finally catching up with Bhinde in Udaipur. The publication reports that eight different teams had to deployed by the Mumbai Police to catch Bhinde, who had booked a room in Udaipur under his brother's name.
"The operation was a top secret, and even the Udaipur police did not know about it," an official said, according to NDTV.
Bhinde was then taken to Ahmedabad and from there he was brought to Mumbai by flight, the official said.
The police team along with Bhinde arrived at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport around 5 am and he was taken to a crime branch office, he said.
(With PTI inputs)