Mumbai: Almost three months after the Bombay High Court ordered the BMC to pay ₹50 lakh each to the families of eight victims killed in the 2015 fire at Kurla’s Hotel City Kinara, the BMC handed over the cheques to the kin on Friday.Each of the family members who were the petitioners in the case were handed a cheque of ₹45 lakh, with 10% being deducted as TDS.Seven of the victims were students — five studying engineering and two pursuing mass media — while the eighth was a design engineer. For their families, the court’s decision came after a decade of unimaginable grief. The cheques, dated September 3, were handed over to six of the eight victims’ families at the BMC Kurla ward office, as the two other victims’ family members who were the petitioners in the matter have passed away. The families who received the cheques said that the other two families will receive the compensation after the right kin of the deceased is identified.Sion Pratiksha Nagar resident Rekha Thapar, mother of Akash Thapar, an engineering student at Don Bosco Institute of Technology (DBIT), was the petitioner in the case. She said, “No amount of money can compensate for the loss of my son today. If my son were alive, he would have by now earned for us even more than what the compensation has given us.”Advocate Godfrey Pimenta, who through their NGO Watchdog Foundation stood by the parents in their legal battle, said that despite numerous obstacles and challenges in uncovering the necessary information, they persevered and continued their efforts to get some justice in the matter. In February 2017, the Lokayukta issued an order granting a nominal compensation of ₹1 lakh. In response, Pimenta said that they drafted a writ petition, finalised it with Senior Counsel, and approached the Bombay High Court to establish accountability among the concerned authorities and to seek appropriate compensation for the families of the victims. |
