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Mumbai Police books owners of mall and hospital, including HDIL promoters
The Mumbai Police on Saturday booked the owners of the Dreams Mall in Bhandup and the management of Sunrise Hospital for culpable homicide not amounting to murder a day after nine Covid-19 patients, mostly elderly, were killed in a fire at the hospital
The Mumbai Police on Saturday booked the owners of the Dreams Mall in Bhandup and the management of Sunrise Hospital for culpable homicide not amounting to murder a day after nine Covid-19 patients, mostly elderly, were killed in a fire at the hospital.
Those booked include directors of the mall, Rakesh Wadhwan, Nikita Amitsingh Trehan, Sarang Wadhwan, Deepak Shirke, and directors of Privilege Healthcare Services Private Limited, which owns the hospital, Amitsingh Trehan, Nikita Amitsingh Trehan, Sweetie Jain.
“They have been booked under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code,” said deputy police commissioner Chaitanya Siriprolu.
The fire started on the first floor of the mall on Thursday night around 11.45 pm and soon spread to the third floor, which houses the hospital. The firefighting system, including sprinklers, was not functioning.
Patients died due to suffocation, the police said. Six of those killed were on ventilators.
A notice for non-compliance with fire safety norms was issued to the mall in November 2020, an official said.
“It is not a case of negligence. There were serious lapses in terms of safety compliance. The biggest lapse is that the mall did not have fire permission. They have also violated the terms and conditions on the basis of which the BMC had given them a part NOC (no objection certificate). That is why we have booked the owners of the mall, hospital management, and the administrator, on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and are further investigating the case,” said deputy police commissioner Prashant Kadam, who is supervising the investigation.
The hospital was functioning on temporary permission due to end on March 31. There were 78 patients admitted to the hospital at the time of the incident.
“The hospital had obtained permission to run a nursing home on October 1, 2020. Since January 2021, the facility has been functioning as a Covid centre. The hospital is owned by Nikita Trehan and one George Putting Shery is the chief executive officer of the hospital,” a police officer said.
Rakesh Wadhawan and his son Sarang, promoters of Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL), are in jail in connection with the Rs6,670 crore Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank scam.
Earlier, Sunrise Hospital authorities said they responded responsibly and called for an investigation to determine how the fire spread.
“There was no casualty due to fire. All patients were promptly shifted to Jumbo Covid centre (and some to other private hospitals). The patients were shifted alive, but there were few patients on ventilators and extremely critical. We believe that the casualties have not occurred due to fire, but either in transit or at other hospitals. The hospital was started in exceptional circumstances of Covid last year, and was functioning with all due compliances,” the hospital said in a statement.
It further said, “The Dreams Mall is managed by Rahul Sahashrabuddhe since 2017 by an NCLT court order. The court appointed administrator, Rahul, ran the mall and there is no Dreams Mall management company or anyone else running it. The mall was under NCLT and the court-appointed administrator was ordered to look after the operations. All the operations at the mall and the licences of the mall are the responsibility of the court-appointed administrator. All the hospital permissions and licences were taken and are in order and have nothing to do with the mall compliances. We wish to clarify that the mall is being run by mall administrator Rahul Sahastrabuddhe and the original owners of the mall Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan were nowhere involved in the management of this mall since August 31,2018.
Citing the court’s order, the statement said that it is clearly written in point 6 of the court order that the administrator is responsible for the hazards for people working in the mall and the public visiting it. Hence by law, it is the duty of the mall administrator to maintain all licences and run the mall.
HDIL did not respond to queries.
The FIR in the matter was registered by the police on Friday night. The Bhandup police is the complainant in the case.
