Hoarding crash: Ad firm director arrested, toll mounts to 16

Mumbai, May 16

An advertising firm’s director, whose company put up the giant billboard whose collapse claimed 16 lives in Mumbai, was arrested on Thursday by police from Udaipur in Rajasthan, three days after the tragedy, an official said.

Bhavesh Bhinde, director of M/s Ego Media Pvt Ltd, the advertising agency which recently installed the hoarding that crashed in suburban Ghatkopar on Monday evening, was apprehended from Udaipur by a team of the Mumbai police’s crime branch, he said.

The 120 feet x 120 feet hoarding collapsed onto a nearby petrol pump during gusty winds and heavy unseasonal rains, killing 16 people and injuring 75 others.

After the tragedy, Bhinde left home in a car with his driver and was since untraceable, leading the Mumbai police to launch a multi-state search for him, said the official.

At least eight teams of the Mumbai police were sent to various places to track him down, he said. Bhinde’s last location was traced near Lonavala, a hill station in Pune district situated around 140km from Mumbai, and a team was sent there, he said.

The crime branch got a tip-off about Bhinde’s whereabouts in Rajasthan, following which a team was dispatched, and he was subsequently arrested in Udaipur, the official said.

He will be brought to Mumbai by flight in the early hours of Friday and produced before a city court during the day, the official said. To find out the whereabouts of Bhinde, the police had questioned his relatives and family members over the last two days. After the tragedy, a case under the IPC was registered against Bhinde, all directors of the advertising agency, its officials and employees, the official said.