MUMBAI, Dec. 11 -- Two more arrests have been made in the Mithi River desilting case, taking the total number of arrests to five. The two contractors who have been arrested had played an important role in faking documents submitted to the civic body to claim money against bills for work that was never done, according to an officer with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police. Police said that although no silt was removed from the Mithi River, these contractors had submitted forged Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs), log sheets and other documents to show that silt had been removed and dumped. "We have arrested Mahesh Purohit of MB Brothers and Sunil Upadhyay of SNB Infrastructure. Both were added as accused in the supplementary charge-sheet filed in November," said a senior police officer with the EOW. The desilting fraud, from 2013 and 2023, was a systematic effort by contractors and civic officials to siphon funds meant for cleaning the Mithi River. Police said MB Brothers had secured contracts worth Rs.23.43 crore between 2014 and 2020, while SNB Infrastructure had bagged contracts worth Rs.27.79 crore. "We have recorded the statements of 14 land owners (on whose land the silt was purportedly dumped). Many of them told us they had not rented their property to these contractors and that their signatures had been forged to prepare fake MoUs," said an EOW officer. Police have already arrested three others in the case - Ketan Kadam, a middleman and lynchpin in the operation; Jay Joshi, another middleman; and Shersingh Rathore, a contractor....