How Bhavesh Bhinde dreamed big and fell from grace in the end

Bhinde, whose family hails from Kutch, Gujarat, was booked by the city police on Thursday for culpable homicide not amounting to murder after 16 people were killed and 74 others injured when a mega hoarding (120x120 feet) erected by his firm Ego Media Pvt Ltd, in Pant Nagar, Ghatkopar East, collapsed on May 13

MUMBAI: Born in a middle-class family, Mulund resident Bhavesh Bhinde, 51, dreamed of making it big from his early years – the highlights of his achievements were to be appropriately displayed on his social media feeds in future.

How Bhavesh Bhinde dreamed big and fell from grace in the end

Bhinde, whose family hails from Kutch, Gujarat, was booked by the city police on Thursday for culpable homicide not amounting to murder after 16 people were killed and 74 others injured when a mega hoarding (120x120 feet) erected by his firm Ego Media Pvt Ltd, in Pant Nagar, Ghatkopar East, collapsed on May 13. The hoarding was beyond the permissible limit (40x40 feet), but when it was put up in 2021, Bhinde bragged to his friends that he was now the “King of Asia Ghatkopar” and declared that the size of the hoarding was “140x120 feet”. He also proclaimed himself as the “King of Dadar” when a 60x60 feet hoarding was put up by his company, and the “King of Central Suburb Ghatkopar” after an 80x80 feet hoarding was erected.

He added that these achievements “would not have been possible without all my well-wishers; thank you for believing in me – nothing is impossible”.

Nothing was impracticable for Bhinde.

Although Bhinde aborted his formal education after Class X, he kept a steadfast vision on his goal. He started out with small jobs at an advertising agency in Grant Road, where he travelled by local trains like every working class Mumbaikar. In many Facebook posts, he said he has also worked as an actor and model, and that during the lockdown months gave dance classes online.

The family, comprising his parents and two sisters, lived in the old Mahaparishad building near the police station in Mulund West. They subsequently moved into a 1BHK rented apartment in Mirani Nagar a few hundred meters away, owned by advocate Jayesh Mirani, a Mulund resident who has known Bhinde over two decades. The family had moved out of his apartment in the mid-1990s to reside in a building in nearby Devi Dayal Road.

“Bhinde was always known to boast and wanted to become a businessman. He understood the hoardings and advertising business, as he had learnt the tricks of the trade while working in the advertising agency. He quit his job in 1999 to start his own firm, Guju Ads,” said one of Bhinde’s friends, who did not wish to be named.

When in Mirani Nagar, Bhinde rented a small office space to start his trade. As business grew, he shifted his office to a 600-sq-feet space in a commercial building at RHB Road, Mulund West, and hired a team of 10 people to run the show.

As he prospered, he started hobnobbing with bureaucrats and politicians looking to enhance his stock. “He is a hardcore businessman and has the ability to convince and win people over quickly. In just a few years he became a top businessmen in the fraternity, owning over 500 hoardings across the city – mostly on leased railway and civic properties,” said one of his friends.

In 2009, he contested the assembly elections as an independent candidate from Mulund constituency against veteran BJP leader Sardar Tarasingh – it was an attempt to divert Gujarati votes and indirectly help the late BJP legislator’s opponents. But he failed to achieve the target.

By now Guju Ads had advertising hoardings at railway platforms and premises; however the railway administration blacklisted the company in 2018 because of several purported violations and complaints lodged by BJP leader Kirit Somaiya and others. This led to business losses but Bhinde was not to be defeated. He started a new venture, Ego Media Pvt Ltd, through which he gained space in the commercial hoardings business – today the company is said to have over 200 hoardings across the city.

Back on his feet with renewed conviction, he applied to the Limca Book of Records for displaying the largest hoarding in India set up on GRP land, in Ghatkopar East. According to a police source, a Mulund resident had introduced Bhinde to then GRP commissioner Quaiser Khalid, who eventually granted him a contract to erect four massive hoardings on the land at Pant Nagar on a ten-year lease.

Apart from two criminal cases – one for allegedly raping one of his colleagues and another for cheating -- there are over 20 cases of violations registered against Bhinde’s firm under relevant sections of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888, which he had declared in his affidavit during an election.

The Kutch native was granted pre-arrest bail by the Bombay high court on March 13 this year in the rape case after the Mulund police informed the court that they did not wish to arrest him.