Kamla Mills fire: Court reserves order on absconding pub

Mumbai: A Mumbai sessions court today reserved its order till tomorrow on the anticipatory bail application filed by Yug Tulli, an absconding co-owner of the Mojo’s Bistro pub in the Kamala Mills compound.

Tulli’s advocate Shyam Divani told the court that the fire started from another adjoining ‘1 Above’ pub and spread to Mojo’s Bistro hence Tulli cannot be blamed. Divani also said that Tulli was innocent and that there was an attempt made to incriminate him and make Mojo’s a scapegoat in the incident.

He added that there was a social media campaign against Mojo’s to prejudice the people against it. However, the prosecution said that the report prepared by the fire brigade, and as per eyewitness accounts, the fire started at Mojo’s and hence Tuli should not be granted pre- arrest bail.

In its preliminary probe report, the Mumbai Fire Brigade had said that the blaze had possibly started at Mojo’s Bistro due to the flying embers of a hookah. The fire had spread to adjacent ‘1 Above’, a swish terrace resto-pub located in a building in the Kamala Mills compound in central Mumbai.

The husband of deceased Parul Lakdawala, who filed an intervention application, opposed the anticipatory bail stating that Tulli was responsible for the death of his wife and others and should not be granted anticipatory bail.

Meanwhile, the government has appointed advocate Prakash Shetty as the special public prosecutor in the case. He is also the special public prosecutor in some NIA cases, including the 2006 Malegaon blasts case.

The police had earlier arrested Yug Pathak, another co- owner of Mojo’s Bistro, in connection with the incident. Pathak, the son of a retired IPS officer, and Tulli, a Nagpur-based businessman, were booked under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life and personal safety of others) and other relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code.

The names of Pathak and Tulli were added to the FIR, lodged on December 29 against the owners of ‘1 Above’ pub — Kripesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijeet Mankar. The three have already been arrested and remanded to police custody.

On December 29, fire had swept through the ‘1 Above’ and adjacent Mojo’s Bistro resto pub in the Kamala Mills compound, resulting in the death of 14 people.