Mumbai’s Hoarding Collapse: Money Trail Points To IPS Officer's Wife’s Business Associate
The May 13 Mumbai’s giant hoarding collapse claimed 17 lives and injured more than 60 people. Investigators who were probing the incident have now directed their attention to the several money transactions that allegedly link the company that owned the “illegal hoarding” and the business associate of a senior police officer’s wife.
As per the Indian Express report, the special investigation team probing the case has found that Ego Media Pvt Ltd, who owned the illegal hoarding remitted Rs 46.5 lakhs through transactions into 10 different bank accounts between 2021 and 2022. And it is learned that all the money was allegedly taken by one person identified as Arshad Khan.
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In December 2022, IPS Officer Quaiser Khalid, the then Government Railway Police commissioner allowed Ego Media Private Limited to install the structure. The installment took place without the permission of the police chief of Maharashtra.
Arshad Khan is a co-director in Mahpara Garments Private Limited, a Mumbai-based company, where Sumanna Quaiser Khalid, the spouse of IPS officer Quaiser Khalid is a co-director as well.
As per the records, both were appointed on June 28, 2022, in the firm. As per the source, Bhavesh Shinde, the arrested Ego Media director said that Khan had asked them to give cheques without mentioning the names of the recipients.
“The SIT then contacted the account holders and found that they were not economically well-off. They told investigators that Arshad Khan, who stays in Shivaji Nagar, was known to them, and had sought their bank account details to transfer money. The money was eventually withdrawn by Khan himself, they stated. Their statements have been recorded,” the source added as quoted by Indian Express.
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The Special Investigation Team (SIT) so far has arrested the former and current directors of the advertising firm, an engineer with a private company that provided a safety certificate for the structure, and the man who oversaw its construction.
Meanwhile, an engineer in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is also under the SIT’s scanner for allegedly promising Ego Media a ‘favorable report’ on the hoarding from the BMC’s law department.
