Actor Dino Morea grilled by Mumbai cops in INR 65 crore Mith
Actor Dino Morea grilled by Mumbai cops in INR 65 crore Mithi River desilting scam
Actor Dino Morea appeared before the Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Monday for questioning in the INR 65 crore Mithi River desilting scam
MUMBAI — Actor Dino Morea appeared before the Mumbai Police's Economic
Offences Wing (EOW) on Monday for questioning in the INR 65 crore Mithi River
desilting scam, an official said.
The model-turned-actor arrived at the EOW office at
police headquarters around 11 a.m., where he faced questions on his possible
links with Ketan Kadam, one of the 13 people booked in the scam so far, the
official said.
An official said the actor’s phone number had cropped up
in the call records of the accused involved in the scam, for which three Mumbai
civic officials and five contractors have also been booked.
Earlier in the month, Mumbai Police claimed that
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials and contractors used bogus
billing to release funds without physical desilting being done in the river, a
major reason for rainwater not flowing into the river and causing flooding in
areas along the banks.
After raiding eight premises, Deputy Commissioner of
Police (EOW) Sangramsingh Nishandar said the FIR was registered at Azad Maidan
Police Station following preliminary findings that pointed towards
“culpability”.
Nishandar said the FIR was registered due to the use of
fake bills and fake MoUs deposited in the BMC related to the alleged desilting
work. The accused were booked under penal provisions dealing with cheating,
breach of trust, forgery and conspiracy. If the charges are proved in court,
the accused may get a punishment of up to seven years in jail.
The FIR covered offences committed during the preparation
of a contract for desilting, transportation of desilted material’s dumping at
nine spots and verification of the contractors’ obligations under the contract
by officials, he said.
Nishandar said the SIT investigators scanned the
processes and contract procedures and found that the contractors deposited fake
bills concerning nine spots where the desilted material was supposed to be
dumped on land.
He also pointed to discrepancies in MoUs signed between
owners of land where the silt was allegedly dumped by desilting contractors and
BMC officials.
In some cases, landowners told the police that they never
entered into a contract with contractors engaged in desilting, yet fake MoUs
bearing their names were deposited by the contractors in BMC, he said.
“Some of the owners of lands, where the silt was to be
dumped, mentioned in documents, don’t exist. So, when there were no landowners
and land, there is a suspicion that the silt was never removed from the river,”
he said.
Some of the companies under the EOW scanner include Acute
Design, Kailash Construction, N.A. Construction, Nikhil Construction and J.R.S
Infrastructure.
“These companies have been accused of depositing fake
MoUs,” he said.
The DCP said the other aspect of the FIR deals with a
field visit conducted by a company called Matprop in February 2020 at the Mithi
River, after which its officials, in league with BMC officials, manipulated the
terms of the desilting contract for illegal gain.
The FIR named the accused civic officials as Prashant Ramugade,
Assistant Engineer and Designated Officer in the Rainwater Drainage Department
of the Municipal Corporation, Deputy Chief Engineer (Pajwa), East Suburbs (P.),
Ganesh Bendre, Deputy Chief Engineer (Prvp), Pajwa (P.), Taishette, and others.
Among the private persons and contractors named in the
FIR are Jay Joshi of Virgo Specialities Pvt Ltd, other partners and directors,
Ketan Kadam of Vodar India LLP, other partners and directors and contractor
Bhupendra Purohit and others, he said.
Others named in the FIR include Deepak Mohan and Kishore
Menon, he said.
An FIR in the desilting case names five contractors,
three middlemen, two company officials, and three BMC officials, accusing them
of causing wrongful loss to the civic agency, said the police.
The SIT was formed after BJP leader and MLC Pravin
Darekar and Prasad Lad raised questions on this issue during the monsoon
session of the state Assembly.
The desilting project was part of a larger INR 1,100 crore
Mithi River beautification plan.
