Representative image of an arrest.
Credit: iStock Photo
Mumbai: Three days after the dust storm-triggered hoarding collapse at Ghatkopar which has claimed 16 lives so far, the Mumbai police on Friday arrested the advertising company owner Bhavesh Bhinde from Udaipur.
Bhinde, who owns the Ego Media Pvt Ltd, which has put up the huge billboard has been absconding since the incident.
The 120x120-foot hoarding - on a railway land - measured bigger than an Olympic size pool and nine times more than the maximum permitted size for a hoarding.
The giant illegal hoarding - billed as India’s biggest - collapsed over the petrol station and CNG pump in Pantnagar off the Chheda Nagar junction in Ghatkopar off the Eastern Express Highway in Mumbai on Monday evening as an unexpected duststorm hit Mumbai and the larger Mumbai metropolitan region (MMR). The hoarding was erected on a 10-year lease.
Bhinde was booked under 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 337 (causing hurt to another person by acting rashly or negligently) read with section 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code and a case was registered in the Pantnagar police saying.
A Crime Branch-CID team arrested Bhinde from Udaipur.
After the incident, BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation has asked Central Railway and Western Railway to pull down hoardings beyond the permissible size.
Over the years, Bhinde obtained multiple contracts from the Indian Railways and BMC for installing billboards and banners.
In 2009, he also contested the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election from Mulund as an Independent candidate. He has some other cases pending against him.
In the hoarding collapse incident, 16 persons have lost their lives, while over 80 others who were trapped sustained injuries. Several vehicles were crushed in the incident.