In the wake of the recent incident of horrific fire at Mumbai’s Kamala Mills, the police have arrested one of the owners of Mojo Bistro, Yug Pathak. Earlier today, cops had booked the owners of Mojo Bistro for culpable homicide. This action against the restaurant came after the preliminary investigation report by the Mumbai fire brigade. As per ANI report, owners of Mojo Bistro are also added as accused in the original FIR of Kamala Mills Fire incident.
The report said that flying embers from illegal hookah being served at Mojo’s Bistro was the probable cause of the massive fire in the Kamala Mills compound that claimed 14 lives on December 29. The fire probably started at Mojo’s and spread to the adjacent rooftop pub “1 Above”, the report indicates. Most of the victims were trapped in the toilet of the pub and died of suffocation, the police had said earlier. “It was revealed from most of the eye witnesses that hookah was served at Mojo’s restaurant at the time of fire… There is every possibility that during removal of lighted charcoal from the segree (stove) and or transferring it into Hookah or during the fanning of the charcoal the flying burning embers came in contact with the combustible curtains/ decorative material nearby and started the fire,” the report stated.
The report has clarified that none of the two restaurants — Mojo’s and 1 Above — had permissions to serve liquor and hookah but still they served them. Although there was an emergency exit, the pub staff seemed to be unaware of it, it added. Beer kegs near the exit path also blocked the escape and the kegs eventually exploded and escalated the fire. Use of bamboo and cloth to make the roof led to the quick spreading of the fire, while wind velocity and direction were the major contributors too, the report added.
The Kamala Mills Fire was a horrific incident in which at least 15 people were killed and as many injured after a major fire engulfed a building in Kamala Mills Compound in Lower Parel, an official said. The fire broke out shortly after midnight on the third floor of the four-storeyed building on Senapati Bapat Marg, a commercial hub of the city, a civic official told PTI. “The cooling operations are underway. Some of the injured people are in critical condition,” the official said. Several fire tenders, water tankers, emergency ambulance and police personnel were rushed to the spot for the rescue operation. The injured were taken to the civic-run KEM and Sion hospitals.