Mumbai hoarding collapse: Accused held after being on run for 3 days

Mumbai: An advertising firm’s director, whose company put up the giant billboard whose collapse claimed 16 lives in Mumbai, was arrested on Thursday by police from Udaipur in Rajasthan, three days after the tragedy, an official said.

Bhavesh Bhinde, director of M/s Ego Media Pvt Ltd, the advertising agency which recently installed the hoarding that crashed in suburban Ghatkopar on Monday evening, was apprehended from Udaipur by a team of the Mumbai police’s crime branch, he said.

The 120 feet x 120 feet hoarding collapsed onto a nearby petrol pump during gusty winds and heavy unseasonal rains, killing 16 people and injuring 75 others.

After the tragedy, Bhinde left home in a car with his driver and was since untraceable, leading the Mumbai police to launch a multi-state search for him, said the official.

At least eight teams of the Mumbai police were sent to various places to track him down, he said.

Bhinde’s last location was traced near Lonavala, a hill station in Pune district situated around 140km from Mumbai, and a team was sent there, he said.

After reaching Lonavala, he stayed in a private property for a couple of hours, where he switched off his mobile phone to avoid tracking by the police, the official said.

Bhinde then told his car driver to get a new SIM card for his mobile phone. When the driver returned with a SIM card, the watchman of the private property told him Bhinde had already left the place, the official said.

After leaving Lonavala, the advertising firm director headed to Ahmadabad, where he met his relatives, and from there he went to Rajasthan, he said.

The crime branch got specific information about Bhinde’s whereabouts in Rajasthan, following which a team was dispatched, and he was subsequently placed under arrest in Udaipur in the evening, the official said.

He will be brought to Mumbai by flight in the early hours of Friday and produced before a city court during the day, the official said.

To find out the whereabouts of Bhinde, the police had questioned his relatives and family members over the last two days.

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, the official said.