AC repair firm owner held for negligence in Mahim blast case

A day after a powerful explosion at a cloud kitchen in Mahim killed one and injured seven others—one of them critically—the police on Saturday arrested the owner of an air-conditioner maintenance firm on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

- Vinay Dalvi

MUMBAI: The state home department, still looking for suitable land for its third jail in the city, has asked the urban development department (UDD) to reserve the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL)'s Deonar telecom factory land for a prison.

A few years ago, the revenue department had sanctioned 2.05 hectares of land at Mandale village in Turbhe, where a vertical jail is due to come up. The prisons department wanted a five-hectare plot, but a huge chunk of this was taken by MMRDA for a metro car shed. The jails department feels that what is left of the land is insufficient and is hence demanding the land where the Deonar telecom factory, which once manufactured telephones, cables and other equipment, stood.

Speaking to HT, Radhika Rastogi, principal secretary, home, in charge of jails said, "We asked the urban development department to change the reservation of the Deonar telecom factory land to 'jail'. We have been given land at Mandale, but it is marshland and has CRZ issues. It is difficult to construct a jail there. We need a larger jail, and hence we want the Deonar land."

The home department is also taking up the matter with senior officials so that the union government grants it the 1,84,059 square-metre plot belonging to BSNL.