In a development that exposed corruption and a criminal nexus among local builders, politicians, bureaucrats and police, the Thane police have arrested seven more persons, including two senior civic officials, a NCP corporator and an Assistant Sub-Inspector, and recovered a cash of `5 lakh in connection with Thursday’s building collapse.
With the latest arrests, the total number of persons taken into custody by the Thane police for their alleged involvement in the under-hand dealings that contributed to the tragic collapse of a seven-storey building at Mumbra, near Thane, has gone up to nine.
Hours after they arrested two builders responsible for the construction of the sub-standard illegal structure at Mumbra that crumbled like a proverbial pack of cards on Thursday evening killing 74 people and leaving 60-odd others injured, the police nabbed four others — including the suspended Deputy Municipal Commissioner Deepak Chavan and local NCP corporator Hira Patil — shortly before midnight on Saturday.
The investigators arrested three more persons on Sunday and recovered `5 lakh in cash and some incriminating documents from the residence of the arrested Deputy Municipal Commissioner of the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC).
Apart from the two builders — Jamil Qureshi and Salim Shaikh — the suspended DMC, corporator Patil, five others who have been arrested in connection with what is proving to be a major unauthorised constructions’ scam are: Babasaheb S Andhale, an Assistant Municipal Commissioner; Kisan Mhadke, a senior clerk with TMC; Afroz Alam Ansari, a building material supplier; Jahangir Umarali Sayyed, an Assistant Sub-Inspector and Sayyad Jabbar Razzak Patel, a collection agent-cum-middle man.
The arrested persons have been charged under Sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder, 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide, 336,337, 338 (causing hurt by endangering life or personal safety of others), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code and also section 13(1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
All the nine arrested persons were on Sunday produced before a Thane-based holiday court which remanded them in police custody till April 20.
Talking to mediapersons earlier in the day, Thane Police Commissioner KP Raghuvanshi said that the investigators had established that the two builders had paid huge “protection money” to civic officers and elected representative concerned to complete the illegal construction of a seven-storey building in a record time of three months.
“We have so far arrested all those persons whose names cropped up during the interrogation of the two builders and the scrutiny of documents that we have found. The investigations are still on. We will not spare any one — however powerful the person may be — if found involved in the wrong doings (leading to the crash of the building),” Raghuvanshi said.
Raghuvanshi said that the police had invoked the Prevention of Corruption Act, as the two arrested builders had paid protection money to the public servants. He indicated that the police would arrest more number of persons in connection with the Mumbai building crash-related scam, in the coming days.
Replying to a question, the Thane police chief said that the two arrested builders had constructed two more illegal buildings at Mumbra, of which one had already been pulled down while the other would be demolished soon.
Queried if the investigators were contemplating action against Thane Municipal Commissioner RA Rajeev for dereliction of duty, the Police Commissioner remarked: “The investigations are in progress. We will act as per the findings.”
On whether the police would invoke the stringent MCOCA against the accused in the Mumbra illegal construction case, Raghuvanshi said: “Even though the case per se looks like an orgnised crime, I can not say as of now if we will invoke the MCOCA in the case”.
Raghuvanshi dismissed the stand taken by the TMC administration as it was not able act against the illegal construction because lack of security from the police.
“There were at least 167 occasions last year when the police provided protection to the TMC to undertake demolition of illegal structures. This clearly meant that every second day in the year, we had given security cover to the TMC officials engaged in demolition operations,” he said.
On whether the police would arrest the forest and civic water supply department officials if their names figured in the investigations, Raghuvashi replied in the affirmative.
Meanwhile, the investigations have revealed that the two arrested builders had paid lakh of rupees as protection money to some senior civic officials, staff, local corporator and policemen to turn blind eye to their illegal constructions at Mumbra and nearby areas.