Kamala Mills fire: 1Above, Mojo’s Bistro owners sent to judicial custody till Jan 31
The family of one of the victims has filed an intervention opposing the bail application
The owners of 1Above and Mojo’s Bistro, who were arrested by the NM Joshi Marg police, were presented before the Bhoiwada court, which reman-ded them in judicial custody till January 31.
On January 22, the lawyers of Yug Pathak — co-owner of Mojo’s Bistro — and Kripesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijit Mankar — owners of 1Above — are expected to present their bail application before the court.
Public prosecutor Sanjay Wadhwane told the court that the police needed custody of the four accused as they wanted to conduct a joint interrogation with Tuli and Pathak — owners of Mojo’s Bistro — as both have been blaming each other for running the hookah parlour illegally. Wadhwane said police wanted to jointly interrogate the Sanghvis, Mankar, Tuli and Pathak to gather further evidence.
Advocate Kiran Jain, who represented the owners of 1Above, said there was no need to remand them in custody as the police had said so repeatedly. He said the police had interrogated the two managers Lisbon Lopez and Kevin Bawa. “All the five accused of 1Above co-operated with the police and gave them the same version of events,” Jain told the court.
He said the police did not need custody of the accused to verify the no objection certificates (NOCs) obtained from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and fire department , which were submitted to them and which the accused had no scope to tamper with.
Advocate Rizwan Merchant, who represented Pathak, said he had co-operated with the police. He added that with the arrests of all the other accused, Pathak’s interrogation should have been complete by now.
The family of one of the victims has filed an intervention opposing the bail application.