Mumbai, March 25 -- A Maharashtra government-appointed panel that investigated the hoarding collapse incident in Mumbai's Ghatkopar has blamed IPS officer Quaiser Khalid, civic officials, and others for the "illegalities" and regulatory violations that led to the deaths of 17 people in May 2024. The panel's report, tabled in the Maharashtra assembly on Tuesday, stated that the sequence of events showed collusion between private parties and officials to circumvent the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC's) regulations. Seventeen people died and 74 others were injured after a massive, illegal hoarding collapsed on a petrol pump in Ghatkopar during a dust storm on May 13, 2024. The incident, one of Mumbai's deadliest infrastructure failures in recent years, triggered widespread scrutiny of illegal hoardings and regulatory oversight. Following the collapse, the state government set up a committee to investigate the roles of all entities involved. The committee, headed by former Allahabad High Court chief justice Dilip Bhosale, found that former Government Railway Police (GRP) commissioner Khalid "unilaterally and without calling tenders" permitted the construction of the illegal 120x140-feet hoarding and granted operating rights to advertising firm Ego Media for 30 years. It added that permissions were also granted to increase the size of three other hoardings without the required approvals, thereby compounding safety risks. Khalid bypassed civic rules that cap hoarding size at 40 ft x 40 ft, the report said. It added that this was done by incorrectly claiming the land belonged to the Railways. The committee gave a clean chit to Khalid's successor, Ravindra Shisve, who was the GRP commissioner when the incident occurred. The report claimed that BMC official Sunil Dalvi, Ego Media directors Bhavesh Bhinde and Janhavi Marathe, and a businessman, Arshad Khan, together committed illegalities that ultimately led to the loss of lives. "The sequence of events not only points the needle of suspicion towards a criminal conspiracy hatched between Mr Khalid, Mr Bhinde, Ms Marathe, Mr Dalvi and Arshad Khan, in order to perpetrate illegalities and circumvent the BMC regulations, but it also seems that they have actually committed illegalities, which untimely led to loss of 17 lives in the incident on May 13, 2024," the report said. The panel rejected Khalid's defence that the site fell under railway jurisdiction and was therefore exempt from BMC rules. It said the land was owned by the Maharashtra government and the Police Welfare Corporation, not the Indian Railways. "It is therefore clear that the treatment of the said land as 'Railway' was only a clever device set up to circumvent the BMC regulations concerning erection of hoardings," the report noted....