Co-owners of eatery remanded in police custody till January 17

Mumbai: A magistrate court in Bhoiwada on Thursday remanded the three co-owners of open terrace pub, 1 Above, to police custody till January 17. The police had sought custody of the three on grounds that it wanted to confront them along with other arrested accused including Mojo’s Bistro partner, Yug Pathak, in connection with the fire that broke out in Kamala Mill Compound on December 29. The development comes a day after the police arrested three absconding accused in the case on Wednesday and Thursday.

Meanwhile, the defence opposed remanding of the trio to police custody, claiming that the police was biased towards 1Above and did not take similar action against Mojo’ Bistro.

However, public prosecutor Sanjay Wadhavane argued before magistrate V.B. Bohra that the three accused i.e. Kripesh Sanghvi (26), Jigar Sanghvi (35) and Abhijeet Mankar (30) should be remanded to police custody as the investigating officers had reason to believe that “C Grade Hospitality and Entertainment”, which manages 1 Above, had more partners and they wanted to inquire about them as well.

The remand application moved before the court by advocate Wadhavane stated that there were around 200 guests present in the pub at the time of the incident and the police wanted to get a list of customers who had booked their entry through email and other online means. The police also wanted to check the kind of permissions the accused had got to run the pub and names of persons who had made illegal alterations and decorations in the pub. The application stated in court that 1 Above and Mojo’s Bistro both suffered in the fire and both were pointing fingers at each other and hence, the police needed to interrogate the accused thoroughly.

Advocate Kiran Jain on behalf of the accused contended that the police was biased towards 1 Above and despite there being eyewitness statements and other circumstantial evidence in favour of 1 Above, it did not take similar strict action against Mojo’s Bistro.