Mumbai: Bhavesh Bhinde, owner of the firm behind the killer Mumbai hoarding, which collapsed amid a dust storm and claimed the lives of 16 people, has been arrested by Mumbai Police from Rajasthan's Udaipur.
The illegal hoarding that stood on a piece of land in possession of the Government Railway Police (GRP) crashed on a petrol pump in Chheda Nagar area on Monday evening when the city was hit by dust storms and unseasonal rains.
Rescue teams had earlier extricated 89 persons from under the collapsed hoarding, of whom 14 were declared dead while the other 75 were injured, as per officials.
National Disaster Response Force's (NDRF) Assistant Commandant Nikhil Mudholkar earlier informed, "We have spotted two bodies stuck under the third girder (of the collapsed hoarding) but we are facing difficulties in reaching the spot. One needs to crawl to reach there."
"We have removed the first girder after cutting it overnight and are now removing the debris with the help of earthmovers and excavators," he said. The NDRF personnel will now cut the second girder and there are more than five such girders (at the crash site), he said.
After removing the girders it will be known how many people are still trapped, the official said.
On Wednesday morning, a small fire broke out at the incident site during the search and rescue operation, but it was immediately doused by the fire tenders deployed there, an NDRF official said.
"There was a small fire but it was extinguished immediately," the official said. The search and rescue operation continued more than 40 hours after the incident, officials said.
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