Kamala Mills fire: Police try to tie loose ends in case

Apart from arresting the five restaurant owners, the police’s other job was to ascertain where the fire began, which they haven’t done yet

The NM Joshi Marg police on Friday registered a case against 1Above owners – Sanghvi brothers and Abhijit Mankar – for non-payment of Rs10 lakh towards provident fund.

Fire erupted in Kamala Mills Compound on December 29. (HT FILE)

The three owners, along with two Mojo’s Bistro owners, are accused in the Kamala Mills fire. “We are investigating the PF case against Sanghvi brothers and Mankar,” said S Jayakumar, additional Commissioner of police (Central region).

After Mojo’s Bistro’s co-owner Yug Tuli’s arrest, the NM Joshi Marg police are now trying to tie all the loose ends in the case of the Kamala Mills fire, which killed 14 people and injured 55 others last month.

Police officers investigating the case said they asked for the custody of Tuli to be able to recover all the documents of the restaurants as he was the operational head according to his partner Yug Pathak’s statement.

“We have recovered almost 90% of the documents including the no-objection certificates (NOC) of the fire department and the renovation. The contract papers contain the signature of Tuli which now have to be verified,” said a police officer from the NM Joshi Marg police. The 25-year-old had surrendered on Tuesday and has been remanded to police custody till January 20.

According to the police, Tuli and Pathak had to be jointly questioned, but since Pathak was remanded to judicial custody on Wednesday, the police were unable to question the two face-to-face. “Although Tuli has said that he was in-charge of the NOCs and renovation work, we still need to find out if there were any more documents we need for the probe,” added the officer.

Apart from arresting the five restaurant owners, two of whom surrendered, the police officials’ other job was to ascertain where the fire began, which they haven’t done yet. They continue to rely on a non-conclusive fire brigade report, which states that the fire started from Mojo’s Bistro and spread to 1Above, situated under it.