BJP leader Kirit Somaiya said that Bhavesh Bhinde, the owner of the advertising agency which installed the billboard should be declared a “fugitive”. “Bhavesh Bhinde who is responsible for this accident has fled. I have requested the police to issue a red-card notice and declare him a fugitive. Bhavesh Bhinde’s Ego Media has put up more than 24 illegal hoardings at various places,” said Somaiya.
Targeting the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), Somaiya also claimed that permission for these illegal hoardings was given during the Uddhav Thackeray government. “The police department of the Thackeray government had given permission for these hoardings on December 7, 2021… I have requested Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to inspect these illegal hoardings put up in 2020-2021 and remove them,” he said.
BJP leader Ram Kadam on X shared a photo of owner Bhavesh Bhinde with Uddhav Thackeray at the latter’s residence and wrote, ” … This is a disturbing picture. Who patronised those unauthorised hoardings? This is clear from this picture.”
In response, Uddhav faction leader Anand Dubey said, “Even after such an unfortunate incident happened, the BJP and its leader Ram Kadam are not refraining from doing politics.”
The 100-foot-tall illegal billboard fell at a petrol pump in Ghatkopar during dust storms and unseasonal rains in Mumbai on Monday claiming 14 lives.
Action against illegal hoardings in Pune, BMC says drive soon
On Tuesday, the Pune civic body said that action has already been taken against more than 1,500 illegal hoardings in the city after Mumbai billboard incident. There were 1,564 illegal temporary hoardings and posters in the city, Pune Municipal Corporation’s commissioner Rajendra Bhosale said. “We have taken action against them. We had also issued an order to conduct structural audit of all legal hoardings in the city,” he told reporters. Of 2,598 legal hoardings in PMC limits, the audit of 2,300 was complete and none of them was found to be structurally unstable, the commissioner said.
Meanwhile in Mumbai, the civic body said it would take action against all hoardings erected without its permission. The drive will start with the removal of the remaining three hoardings on the GRP land in Ghatkopar. “We have also directed all civic officials and assistant commissioners to remove such hoardings erected without our permission or which are dangerous in their respective wards immediately. In the next few days you will find this action completed,” said municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagran.
Hoarding crashed before action against agency for ‘harming’ trees
The Government Railway Police (GRP) said the billboard installed on its land collapsed even before it could take action against the advertising agency over a complaint that it damaged trees to erect it. The owner of Ego Media, Bhavesh Bhinde, and others have been booked under sections 304 (Culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 337 (causing hurt to another person by acting rashly or negligently) of the Indian Penal Code.
Bhinde has been reportedly absconding since Monday night and police have started a probe into the incident. As per some reports, the EGP Media Co. was earlier “blacklisted” by the Central Railway and it is not clear how the firm was allowed to erect the mammoth hoarding.
(With inputs from agency)