Pub blaze: Kamala Mills owner Gowani held

The owner of Mumbai’s Kamala Mills compound, Ramesh Gowani, was arrested on Monday in connection with a pub fire, which claimed 14 lives on December 29 last year, police said.

Gowani, who was travelling in a car, was intercepted at suburban Chembur by a team of the N M Joshi Marg police station, a senior police official said.

“We have arrested Gowani under IPC section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder),” said S Jaykumar, Additional Commissioner of Police (Central Region).

Earlier, Gowani was booked for the offence under relevant sections of the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act and his statement was recorded by the police after the blaze swept through resto-pubs 1 Above and Mojo’s Bistro located in the Kamala Mills compound in Central Mumbai, another official said.

Recently, Kamala Mills partner Ravi Bhandari, Station Fire officer Rajendra Patil and owner of Nirvana Hukkah Utkarsh Pandey were arrested for the same offence.

The arrests were made after civic chief Ajoy Mehta, in his report to the Maharashtra chief minister, mentioned about the factors which caused the tragedy.

According to the inquiry report, the fire started because of flying charcoal embers from hookah which was illegally served at Mojo’s Bistro. It then spread to 1 Above. Most of the victims were dining at 1 Above.

All owners of the two pubs had been booked and arrested.