Kamala Mills fire case: Accused Yug Pathak, Jigar Sanghvi, Kripesh Sanghvi and Abhijit Mankar sent to judicial custody till 31 January

Bhoiwada sessions court on Wednesday sent four of the accused in Kamala Mills fire case, Yug Pathak, Jigar Sanghvi, Kripesh Sanghvi and Abhijit Mankar, to judicial custody till 31 January. The list of accused in the case includes co-owners of Mojo’s Bistro Yug Tulli and Yug Pathak and owners of 1Above pub Jigar Sanghvi, Kripesh Sanghvi and Abhijit Mankar. Apart from them, hotelier Vishal Kariya was also arrested for sheltering the owners of 1Above pub, however, he was later granted bail. Tulli is under police custody till 20 January.  

#KamalaMillsFire: Bhoiwada Court sends all 4 accused - Yug Pathak, Jigar Sanghvi, Kripesh Sanghvi and Abhijit Mankar to Judicial custody till 31st January. #Mumbai

— ANI (@ANI) January 17, 2018

Tulli a Nagpur-based businessman, had surrendered before the Mumbai Police on Tuesday, while Pathak, the son of a retired IPS officer, was arrested on 6 January . The names of Pathak and Tulli were added to the FIR lodged on 29 December against the owners of 1Above: Kripesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijeet Mankar. [caption id=“attachment_4307601” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Kamla Mills fire case accused Abhijeet Mankar, Sanghvi brothers and Yug Pathak being produced in Bhoiwada court in Mumbai on Wednesday. PTI[/caption] The duo were booked under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life and personal safety of others) and other relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code. Earlier, on 12 January, the sessions court had rejected Tulli’s plea for anticipatory bail. His lawyer had sought the bail, arguing that the devastating fire at the Kamala Mills compound on 29 December, which had claimed 14 lives and injured 55, had started from the adjoining 1Above pub. However, a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) report, later revealed that the blaze had actually originated  from flying embers from illegal hookah being served at Mojo’s Bistro. The two pubs shared a terrace space. Earlier, on 11 January, the Mumbai Police had arrested the absconding co-owner of '1Above' pub Abhijeet Mankar after the other co-owners of the pub— Jigar Sanghvi and Kripesh Sanghvi —were detained. The owners of 1Above — Kripesh Sanghai, Jigar Sanghavi and Abhijit Manka — had also written to the President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others, alleging that the Mumbai police investigations conducted by NM Joshi police station was “biased.” On 29 December, fire had swept through the ‘1Above’ and adjacent Mojo’s Bistro resto pub in Kamala Mills compound in central Mumbai, resulting in the death of 14 people. They also took objections to the police preventing the insurers from entering the premises to survey since they (police) “are scared that the insurance company will discover the fire had erupted at the The Mojo’s Bistro, and that evidence is still lying and not collected, or that evidence is destroyed”. The 1Above owners also accused the police of being biased and destroying the evidence to favour the owners of The Mojo’s Bistro, both situated in the Kamala Mills Compound in Lower Parel in southcentral Mumbai. With inputs from PTI