Scams Gulps Lives: Police, civic officials took Rs 20 lakh to clear killer building

Builder would have made Rs 20 cr from illegal structures
All it took was bribes of Rs 5 lakh each to four Thane officials
Lucky Developers, the promoters of the seven-floor Mumbra building that collapsed on Thursday killing 74 people, would have made a profit of Rs 20 crore from their three illegal buildings by paying a bribe of just Rs 20 lakh to the police and municipal officials.

Even more shockingly, sources said, it was municipal officials who gave the builders the idea to populate the building quickly to make it difficult for authorities to act on them. Police sources said Jameel Qureshi, one of the partners in the company, confessed that he paid a bribe of Rs 5 lakh each to a senior police inspector, a corporator and two municipal officials to get approval for his dubious file. All four are now arrested.

The police said they found a Qureshi’s diary that corroborated his confession. Mumbra police on Saturday arrested Qureshi from his home in Uttar Pradesh while the Thane crime branch arrested his partner Salim Shaikh a day before. Deputy Municipal Commissoner Deepak Chavan was also arrested in Thane. On Sunday six more people were arrested – Assistant Municipal Commissioner Babasaheb Andale, constable S Sayeed from Diaghar police station, local NCP corporator Hira Patil, TMC clerk Kisan Madke, collection agent Jabbar Patel and Afroz Ansari, who supplied the inferior building material.

According to the police who pieced together the sequence of events, Lucky Developers first contacted Jabbar Patel, a real estate agent. Patel put them in touch with policemen from the Diaghar police station and promised to get the no-objection certificate from the police.

Jabbar then contacted Afroz Ansari, who agreed to supply the building material at a very low cost. Patel then contacted Diaghar ASI S Sayeed and convinced him to arrange a meeting with senior officials. Sayeed was paid a mere Rs 4,000 to set up a meeting with Senior Inspector K Naik, who assured them that his men would not interfere with the construction process.

Once the police were in their bag, the developers went to work on Thane municipal officials.

Jabbar first contacted local corporator Hira Patel and convinced him to rope in senior TMC officials, for which Hira Patel got Rs5lakh.The corporator then approached head clerk Kisna Madke, who indirectly controls the flow of procedures at the corporation. Madke then introduced the developers to Assistant Municipal Comissioner Baba Saheb Andhale, who moved the file to his senior Deputy Municipal Commissioner Deepak Chauhan, who gave the final approval for the project. Both of them took Rs 5 lakh each. The police said the builders also promised these high officials one flat each in the building for the favours they rendered.

Thane Police Commissioner KP Raghuvanshi said the police has detailed documentary evidence to prove that the developers paid timely bribes to top officials so that they would turn a blind eye to the ongoing illegal constructions.

“As investigations proceed, more arrests are anticipated,” Raghuvanshi told Mumbai Mirror.

WHOSE LAND IS IT?
With an unprecedented toll of 74 in the Mumbra building collapse bringing the scanner on illegal constructions in the area, every department is trying to distance itself from the blame.

Forest officials said the land on which the ill-fated structure stood was not apart forest land.TheTMC,onthe other hand, said the land belonged to the forest department and that the corporation had nothing to do with it.

Forest officials said the land indeed belonged to them till 1978, but was “encroached upon by tribal people after that.” They said Lucky Developers bought the land from “private owners” in 2013 for Rs 40 lakh.

“It is tribal land and does not belong to the forest department,” said GT Chauhan, deputy conservator of forests, Thane. “Since forest land is adjacent to it, people assumed that this too was forest land. We have verified our records and it has come to light that the land belong to a private owner.”
Courtesy:
Nazia Sayed @timesgroup.com
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Scams Gulps Lives: Builders bribed officials at all levels: Police chief

5 Lakh Found In Deputy Civic Chief’s Home
Thane: The investigations into the collapse of a seven storey building in Mumbra has exposed a nefarious nexus of builders, municipal officials and the police in the area, where crooked developers bribe officials and cops into silence as they erect substandard and unauthorized constructions.

Thane police chief K P Raghuvanshi said on Sunday that the builders of the structure that crumbled on Thursday, killing 74 people and injuring 62, had paid off officials, “who abused their power for personal gain”. “The amount runs into several lakh of rupees,” he said.

In raids on the home of the builders on Sunday, said Raghuvanshi, the police recovered the time schedule of the cash payments made to the authorities at all levels besides land documents and sale agreements of the illegal Shilphata flats.

GRAFT BUILT UP TO BIG TRAGEDY

• Police make three more arrests on Sunday, taking the total to nine
• In search of the home of builders Salim Shaikh and Jamil Qureshi, police recover the time schedule of the cash payments made to the colluding authorities besides land documents and sale agreements of the illegal Mumbra flats
• Rs 5 lakh cash and “property documents” recovered from suspended TMC deputy commissioner Deepak Chavan’s residence

Bribes paid to officials on basis of illegal slabs
Separately, during a search of the residence of suspended deputy commissioner Deepak Chavan of Thane Municipal Corporation, the police found Rs 5 lakh cash and “property documents”.

Chavan was arrested on Saturday for alleged “involvement” with the ill-fated building’s developers. Apart from him were arrested two of the builders (Siddiqui and Shaikh), assistant municipal commissioner Babasaheb Andhale, NCP corporator from Shilphata Hira Patil and havaldar Jehangir Sayyad of Daighar police station.

Taking the tally to nine on Sunday, the police arrested senior TMC clerk Kisan Madke, building materials supplier Afroz Ansari and agent Sayyad Patel. All the accused were produced in a Thane court and remanded in police custody till April 20. They have been booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, among other things. If proved guilty, they can be punished with life imprisonment.

Meanwhile, the NCP suspended Patil from the party.
According to several sources, the developers paid bribes as per different measures. To the colluding civic officials and elected representatives, money was given for every concrete slab added to the illegal structure. To the former was allegedly given Rs 1.50-2 lakh and to the latter Rs 50,000. The conspiring policemen were, meanwhile, paid Rs 50,000 for each illegal tenement, said sources.

Besides the construction that crumpled last week, Siddiqui and Shaikh built two other seven-storey illegal buildings on a three-acre plot, L u ck y C o m p o u n d , at Shilphata. It is estimated that around 100 seven- to 10-storey illegal buildings are standing in Shilpata area, in spite of repeated complaints by citizen-activist Mangal Patil to the civic authorities.

“Preliminary inquiry reveals it is an organized network. The documents recovered from the builders’ house gives details of the payments made to all the accused,” said Raghuvanshi. Raids on the residences of other accused also threw up “incriminating documents,” said sources.

“The arrest operation (on Saturday) was conducted swiftly. The NCP corporator (Patil) was participating in a news channel debate at Shilphata. As soon as the programme was over he was asked by crime branch officials to come to the headquarters for a meeting. Unaware of their intentions, Patil went to the office and was declared arrested,” an official said.

Raghuvanshi said more arrests are likely to be made soon. The police are searching for five partners of the builders who were also involved in the racket. Also, they are looking into the role of MSEB officials who reportedly gave a 120-gauge electric cable to the illegal building.

“The MSEB’s defence could be that as power comes under essential commodites it cannot refuse connections. However, that’s half the truth. The law says that a builder has to submit documents such as the building plan, commencement certificate, PAN card of the builder and his partners and a written application on the firms’ letterhead giving details about the project. It is unlikely the norms were followed and yet the building got a power connection,” said a local.

The police commissioner, when asked if the accused men could also be booked under the stringent MCOCA, said that though the accused were working as an organized cartel, MCOCA law is applicable on habitual offenders who have served jail term before.

Preliminary inquiry reveals that it is an organized network. The documents recovered from the builders’ house give details of the payments made to all the accused, who abused their official power for personal gain. - K P Raghuvanshi | THANE POLICE COMMISSIONER
Courtesy:
Nitin Yeshwantrao TNN
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