Uddhav govt goes after Dreams Mall owners for fire breakout as Shiv Sena-led BMC gets caught in scandal

The Uddhav Thackeray government in Maharashtra is looking to save its cash cow, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), from getting caught in the crossfire of the Dreams Mall fire investigation. After news reports came out that a hospital was running on the third floor of Dreams Mall in Bhandup west area of Mumbai, Shiv Sena in an attempt to deflect the attention from BMC, where it is in power, and granted a haphazard operating license to the owners of the mall allegedly under political favouritism. has turned the entire police force to go after the mall and hospital owners.

According to a Hindustan Times report, Mumbai police on Saturday booked the owners of the Dreams Mall and the management of the Hospital for culpable homicide not amounting to murder after nine Covid-19 patients, mostly elderly, were killed in a fire at the hospital.

“They have been booked under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code,” said Chaitanya Siriprolu, the deputy police commissioner.

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Those who were booked include directors of the Mall, Rakesh Wadhwan, Nikita Amit Singh Trehan, Sarang Wadhwan, Deepak Shirke, and directors of Privilege Healthcare Services Private Limited, which owns the hospital — Amit Singh Trehan, Nikita Amit Singh Trehan, Sweetie Jain.

As reported previously by TFI, on the intervening nights of Thursday-Friday, a fire engulfed the Dreams Mall which surprisingly also accommodated a COVID-19 hospital named ‘Sunrise Hospital’ on its third floor.

Numerous media reports have stated that BMC overlooked several violations at the mall and issued a provisional Occupational Certificate (OC) to Sunrise Hospital to operate as a COVID-19 care facility.

One of the senior police officers, who was supervising the entire investigation, remarked that it was not a case of negligence, albeit a lack of safety compliance. However, the question begets once again, if there were safety issues, why did BMC issue the OC in the first place? And why the police is not going after Shiv Sena’s BMC as well?

“It is not a case of negligence. There were serious lapses in terms of safety compliance. The biggest lapse is that the mall did not have fire permission. They have also violated the terms and conditions on the basis of which the BMC had given them a part NOC (no objection certificate). That is why we have booked the owners of the mall, hospital management and the administrator on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and are further investigating the case,” said deputy police commissioner Prashant Kadam, who is supervising the investigation.

BJP leader Kirit Somaiya was quick to latch onto BMC’s shoddy work in granting the operating permission to the hospital. As per Somaiya, the Sunrise Hospital is owned by Rakesh Wadhwan who is a promoter of Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) and is facing an inquiry in the PMC Bank scam. The BJP leader further said that Wadhwan had special relations with NCP leaders and that the hospital was constructed with PMC bank money declared NPA in 2014.

According to another CNN News 18 report, the BMC had earlier carried out an assessment on Mumbai malls regarding the fire safety norms and Dream Mall was amongst the 29 malls which were declared unsafe as it did not comply with the fire safety norms.

By only going after the hospital and mall owners, Shiv Sena has clearly shown that it is looking to sacrifice them to protect its integrity as the BMC elections are scheduled to be held early next year. Any controversy and Shiv Sena could lose the plot in the absence of BJP by its side. Thus, the Uddhav Thackeray government is trying to keep BMC as far away from the accident as possible.