Ghatkopar hoarding collapse: Report finds ‘criminal misconduct’ on part of Quaiser Khalid | Mumbai news
MUMBAI: The Mumbai police have submitted a report to the state home department, stating that they have found “criminal misconduct” on the part of a senior police officer, who is squarely in the line of fire over the Ghatkopar hoarding collapse in May last year.
Former commissioner of the Government Railway Police (GRP), Quaiser Khalid, has been named in the report, after he allowed the hoarding to be erected on GRP property even though it flouted several regulations. The oversized 120×140-foot hoarding had crashed on a petrol pump in Ghatkopar, claiming 17 lives and injuring 74 people.
The report, submitted by the Mumbai Crime Branch, states that Khalid had flouted the tendering process for the hoarding as required under the law. Khalid had also claimed that the land on which the hoarding was erected belonged to the railways, which had caused the state government considerable financial loss.
In their report, the police also suggested that an investigation be conducted under Section of 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. This would mean the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) could investigate the case, which would require the green signal from the home department under 17A of the Act.
Khalid was suspended six weeks after the hoarding collapse, for violating several regulations while granting permission to Ego Media to erect the hoarding on GRP property. He also came under scrutiny when it turned out that Arshad Khan, a business partner of Khalid’s wife, had allegedly accepted ₹84 lakh from Ego Media, a company owned by Bhavesh Bhinde. Khan was absconding for almost seven months before he was arrested in Lucknow in December last year.
Arshad Khan, police said, had no ostensible connection with Ego Media but had convinced more than a dozen people from Govandi, including family members, to allow him to use their bank accounts to deposit the cheques, totalling more than ₹84 lakh. Khan subsequently withdrew the money.
During interrogation, Khan claimed he had received they money from Ego Media as payment for the supply of medicines to its owner Bhavesh Bhinde. He claimed that Bhinde had ordered the medicines from his (Khan’s) brother-in-law, who runs a medical store in Mumbai. The medicines, he claimed, were distributed to the public during the Covid-19 pandemic. Khan had used the bank accounts of his wife, brother-in-law and nephew to deposit the cheques issued by Ego Media.
Arshad Khan, Ego Media, Quaiser Khalid linked: Court
While rejecting the bail plea of Arshad Khan, purported business partner of then commissioner of GRP, Quaiser Khalid’s wife, the sessions court recently observed that there was prima facie material to show Khan’s complicity in the alleged transaction between Ego Media Pvt Ltd and Khalid.
There is “prima facie complicity of the applicant in the alleged transaction between Ego Media Pvt Ltd and Mr Khalid”, observed sessions judge SB Pawar, while rejecting Khan’s bail plea last week.
The court observed that Khan’s role was in the first phase of the offence, when Khalid took charge as commissioner, GRP, under whom Ego Media had obtained permission to erect the oversized 120×140 foot hoarding, by showing that the plot belonged to the railways, to get around the size limitation.
The court observed that the chargesheet revealed that Janhavi Marathe, former director of Ego Media, had issued cheques to Arshad Khan at the instance of Khalid, to increase the term and size of the hoarding.
“The statement of Law Officer Shirsath, attached to the GRP Commissionerate, shows that initially he had prepared a draft to the effect that the permission of BMC would be required but Mr Khalid instructed him to change the draft and accordingly it was later on changed,” said the court.
The court also said that Khan, prima-facie “is a partner with the wife of Mr Khalid in a shop namely Mahapara Lakhanauvi, and he was knowing Mr Khalid since long prior to the disputed transaction”.
According to the prosecution, Ego Media and Gujju Media had issued 36 cheques to Khan, which he deposited in the bank accounts of 16 other persons known to him and had withdrawn the money.
– Revu Suresh
