The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has ordered the removal of remaining hoardings on Government Railway Police (GRP) land at Chheda Nagar in the eastern part of Mumbai’s Ghatkopar, where at least 14 persons were killed and 74 injured when a 100-feet-tall illegal billboard fell at a petrol pump during massive dust storms and unseasonal rains on Monday.
The billboards on GRP land were installed by Ego Media, a hoarding company and the advertising agency owned by one Bhavesh Bhinde. The BMC has issued a notice to the company for installing the hoarding that collapsed.
All About Ego Media and Bhavesh Bhinde
As per the civic body, Bhinde’s agency did not have a permit from the BMC to put up the hoarding. The hoarding measured about 1,338 square metres (14,400 square feet), it said, bigger than an Olympic pool’s 1,250 sq m and nine times more than the maximum permitted size for a hoarding.
The agency’s owner, Bhavesh Bhinde, and others were also booked under sections 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) of the Indian Penal Code. The case has been registered at Pantnagar police station and the investigation is underway.
Bhinde, who contested the 2019 Maharastra Assembly elections, have other non-cognisable offences against him.
BJP leader Kirit Somaiya has alleged that Bhinde has absconded from the country with his family. However, Mumbai police are ‘working hard’ to track him.
Aftermath and Investigations
According to civic officials, the billboard was illegal and no permission was taken to install it.
Mumbai police conducted a search at Bhinde’s residence in Mulund on Monday night. However, he was not found there and is currently untraceable, according to a report by the Times of India.
Quoting police, TOI reported that authorities have assembled teams to locate Bhinde, as his mobile phone is currently switched off, the police said.
A senior official said the assistant municipal commissioner of the N-ward had issued a notice to Ego Media to remove these hoardings with immediate effect, but the civic body has not received any response so far.
The hoardings are erected back to back and will have to be razed one after the other, the official said, without specifying the timeframe for the demolition.
The GRP has informed that it does not have the necessary equipment to remove the remaining hoardings and requested the BMC to take them down, he said.
Another civic official said the hoardings were located along the Eastern Express Highway, which connects Mumbai with Thane.
They are placed about 100-150 meters away from each other, he said.
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