Police invokes murder charges in Malvani hooch case

MUMBAI: In an interesting development the Mumbai crime branch probing into the Malvani hooch incident in which 104 lives were lost, have moved an application before the 37th Metropolitan Magistrate on Friday to invoke two more stringent sections of IPC.
Senior police officials said that the crime branch on Friday moved an application before the court seeking permission in adding two more IPC sections of 302 and 307 or murder and attempt to murder.TOI was first to report this in its June 29th edition "Police likely to apply murder charges in Malvani hooch case".
Officials said that there were two reasons for applying this stringent sections -first that they have found evidence to establish the fact that the accused had prior knowledge that if they were selling poison and secondly the police now wants to send a strong message to those indulging in such trade that they will not be tolerated. Lastly the chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis too had hinted that he was in favour of capital punishment for those responsible for the Malwani hooch tragedy, which claimed 104 lives.
Police have taken legal opinion from the state law and judiciary department's opinion before invoking this two sections.. The city crime branch, which has taken over the case and arrested nine persons, including two women and a Vapi chemical trader Kishore Patel, have already applied Sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 328 (causing hurt by means of poison), 114 (abetment) and 201 (destruction of evidence). "The charge-sheet should be strong, with tough sections (under relevant laws) invoked against the accused. The public prosecutor should demand severest possible punishment for the accused," Fadnavis had said at a meeting.
While police have arrested key accused Vapi-based Kishore Patel, on June 25 in connection with supply of Methonal to other accused, they are looking for three chemical suppliers from Gujarat who have gone underground and are missing since the police started looking for them. Investigators are also looking into the role of the two companies which has supplied the deadly chemical in connivance of some local excise officers.
These chemical suppliers including Patel has been working in the chemicals industry since the nineties and has immense knowledge about it. These companies are allotted a particular quota for production. After they sold methanol for industrial uses, their surplus was bought by Patel and others.They would supply it to Malwani-based mechanic, Mansoor Khan alias Atiq. Atiq would, in turn, supply the methanol to Malwani-based country liquor distributors Francis D'Mello and Salim Shaikh who would dilute the chemical.