Around 13 cars that were seized by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai crime branch were left completely burnt while a few other cars were partially burnt after a fire broke out below the flyover where they were parked, on the Western Express Highway in Borivali in the early hours of Monday. No person was injured in the incident, the police said.
According to the Kasturba Marg police, the incident took place at around 1 am and the fire was seen emanating from the start of the Magathane Flyover on its north-bound stretch near the Magathane bus depot.
The fire brigade from Dahisar rushed one fire engine and a water tanker carrying 10,000 litres of water to the spot, while another fire engine and water tanker was pressed into service from Borivali as back-up. The crew of around 12 firemen and two officers doused the fire within a span of two hours, but the fire was said to be a minor one.
Senior police inspector of Kasturba Marg police station, Bharat Worlikar, said, “We are probing the incident from all angles. We will register a case after finishing our investigation. We need to find out if someone set the cars on fire deliberately or if it was just a mishap. Nobody lives in the vicinity of where the mishap took place.
We have also written to the EOW to give us more information on the cars like the case in which they were seized, the models of the cars and other such details.”
Additional commissioner Raj Vardhan Sinha, who is currently heading the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), told The Asian Age that they had seized the cars in a few EOW cases, including the highly publicised Limouzine scam, and that some of the cars parked there had been there since 2010.
When asked why the cars were not kept safely in the special dumping ground in Mahul village, Chembur, that was made available by a former Mumbai police commissioner, Mr Sinha said, “The local police did not object to it. Also, the cars were safe there.” Mr Sinha added that the EOW would be approaching the court and informing them about the incident of fire.