Owners of firm that hired security guard arrested, out on bail

Owners of the private security agency that had hired Sajid Mogul, who murdered 25-year-old lawyer Pallavi Purkhayastha last month, were arrested on Wednesday.

Owners of the private security agency that had hired Sajid Mogul, who murdered 25-year-old lawyer Pallavi Purkhayastha last month, were arrested on Wednesday. The Wadala TT police arrested 47-year-old Abdul Hamid Khan and Aslam Khan, 43, owners of Abdul Hamid Enterprises, for not maintaining proper records of security guards employed by them.

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The duo was booked under the Indian Penal Code and Private Security Regulation Act (PSRA), produced before a court, and later released on bail.

Senior inspector of Wadala TT police Nagesh Jadhav said, “Though PSRA is not frequently used, we took this step to set a precedent. It is a strong message to security agencies that they cannot consider taking down details of people they employ as mere formality.”

The crime branch of Mumbai police had encountered difficulty in arresting Moghul because the firm had taken down his address only as ‘Lal Chowk, Srinagar, Kashmir’. Jadhav said, “We want to ensure that an incident like this does not reoccur. We are checking with security agencies if they have verified the background details of their employees.”

Earlier, joint commissioner of police (crime) Himanshu Roy had said that the crime branch was seeking legal opinion to see if private security agencies could be booked for negligence.