Saturday, Apr 27, 2024 | Last Update : 03:50 AM IST
Tuli’s wife may be booked
Pritina who allegedly helped her husband set up the pub, fled with him.
Mumbai: The wife of Mojo’s Bistro’s co-owner Yug Tuli, Pritina, is likely to be booked by the police for allegedly fleeing with her husband, who is absconding in the Kamala Mills fire case. According to sources, Pritina is allegedly one of the people who helped Tuli set up Mojo’s Bistro, along with co-owner Yug Pathak, son of ex-IPS officer K.K. Pathak.
Tuli has been charged for the deaths of 14 people who succumbed to asphyxiation after a fire broke out in his pub on December 29. Along with Tuli, six others have been named in the FIR and arrested, while he is the only one absconding. Tuli was last seen with Pritina at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad on Monday.
According to the police sources, Pritina acted as a managing director at Mojo’s Bistro, and while Pathak and Tuli were registered as co-owners of the pub, Pritina — who went by Pritina Shreshtha back then — and singer Siddharth Mahadevan were a part of the project. Since only Tuli and Pathak were co-owners of the pub on paper, the police registered a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder in the fire that gutted their establishment and the neighbouring 1 Above pub.
A senior police officer told The Asian Age on the condition of anonymity, “According to footage obtained from the Hyderabad airport, Tuli was seen with his wife. Knowing that Tuli is a wanted accused in the fire incident, the police will most likely book Pritina for shielding him and helping him abscond.”
Virendra Mishra, deputy commissioner of police (Zone 3), told this paper, “We found the car he travelled in from Mumbai. He was seen with his wife at the airport. We suspect that they wanted to board a flight from Hyderabad to go somewhere, but he changed his mind and went back, as seen in the CCTV footage. We suspect he is residing at some relative’s place here in Hyderabad.”
Till now, the police has made 10 arrests including the owners of 1 Above pub — Kripesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijeet Mankar — and its managers Kevin Bawa and Lisbon Lopez; the co-owner of Mojo’s Bistro Yug Pathak; and relatives of the Sanghvi brothers, Mahendra, Rakesh and Aditya Sanghvi, who allegedly shielded them in the probe, along with a friend of Mankar’s — Vishal Karia, a hotelier and alleged bookie.
