The total number of arrests in the post-Mumbra building collapse crackdown on the builder-civic-official-police lobby has mounted to 11, with the investigators taking two more persons — an architect and a local journalist — into custody.
On a day when an embarrassed Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) began pulling down illegal buildings in and around Mumbai where an unauthorised seven-storey building had collapsed on Thursday last killing 74 people and injuring 60-odd others, the police identified two newly arrested persons as Farukh Abdul (59) and Rafiq Kamdar (44), the editor of a weekly newspaper in Mumbra.
The investigations have revealed that Abdul being a professional architect was close to the two builders Jameel Qureshi and Salim Sheikh who were arrested on Saturday last, while Kamdar used to liaise on behalf of the builders with the corrupt senior TMC officials who turned a blind eye to the illegal construction of the structure that gave way.
In a belated move, the TMC officials — under flak from various quarters for doing precious little to check the mushrooming illegal constructions — have now embarked on an operation to pull 57 such unauthorised buildings, in the first phase of its anti-encroachment drive.
Having taken a decision at a crucial TMC meeting called by Municipal Commissioner to take stock of the situation initiate steps to pull down the illegal structures in Mumbai and other surrounding, the civic officials began the demolition drive on Tuesday. By evening, the civic administration had demolished a few buildings.
“Since we have a huge
task on hand, it would take at least a week or even more before we pulled down all the 57 illegal buildings,” a senior TMC official said.
Apart from the two builders, the TMC had during the weekend arrested seven persons in connection with Thursday’s Mumbra building collapse.