Debris at the site after a 100-foot tall illegal billboard fell on a petrol pump on Monday due to rains and dust storm, in Ghatkopar area of Mumbai. File photo | Photo Credit: PTI
Suspended IPS officer Quaiser Khalid has claimed before Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Ghatkopar hoarding crash that incumbent Government Railway Police (GRP) commissioner Ravindra Shisve neither acted on complaints about the illegal billboard’s huge size and nor checked its structural stability.
Mr. Khalid, who was GRP commissioner when the hoarding crashed on a petrol pump in Mumbai’s Ghatkopar area in May this year killing 17 persons, also claimed that these complaints were raised before Shisve through office notes.
Mr. Khalid was suspended for alleged administrative lapses and irregularities in sanctioning the hoarding on his own without approval from the Director General of Police’s office.
His statement is part of a chargesheet submitted by the SIT of the Mumbai crime branch in the magistrate court last week.
Mr. Khalid told SIT officials that he had approved a maximum hoarding size of up to 200 square feet. This decision was based on the safety conditions required for other hoardings on the site, considering the local soil and climatic conditions, according to his statement.
He also considered the proximity of a petrol pump to the hoarding and imposed additional conditions prescribed by BPCL in their tender allotment order on Ego Media Private Limited, the operator for the billboard.
‘No action taken’
On December 19, 2022, Ego Media applied for revised rentals, proposing an increase in the board size to 33,600 square feet. However, Mr. Khalid, who was under a transfer order and considered it a policy matter, refused to take any decision on the note and asked the office to put the matter before the incoming GRP commissioner, Shisve, for orders.
After the hoarding was erected, several political, social, and non-governmental organisations raised objections over its construction, according to Mr. Khalid. “Shisve didn’t take any action on these complaints. He neither got the structural stability of the hoarding checked nor the points raised in those complaints,” he alleged.
