Accident or sabotage: ED office fire triggers political controversy in Mumbai

The Kaiser-I-Hind building in Ballard Estate houses the office of the Enforcement Directorate

The building in South Mumbai, which was at the centre of Maharashtra politics during the last decade, is once again in the news. The Kaiser-I-Hind building in Ballard Estate, which houses the office of the Enforcement Directorate, caught fire last Sunday. It took over ten hours for the fire brigade to douse the blaze. The opposition parties in Maharashtra have refused to consider the incident an accident and are suspecting a conspiracy.

Harshavardhan Sapkal, the Maharashtra chief of Congress, alleged: "Sab golmaal hai. (It's all fishy.) The ED officers themselves have burnt down their office. For the last ten years, the ED was used to imprison opposition leaders and coerce politicians into switching parties, and now the evidence has been destroyed."

Supriya Sule, MP of NCP (SP), asked: "Was any fire audit conducted at the ED office? Why did it take so long to douse the fire? If we lose a single document, we are served notices. Why were safety measures not implemented in such an important building?"

The building, constructed in 1918, and located close to the ports, has seen many high-profile visitors over the last couple of years — some of them as accused. NCP leaders Chhagan Bhujbal, Sameer Bhujbal, Nawab Malik, and Anil Deshmukh were arrested and interrogated by the ED in this building. Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut was also held here during his ED custody.

Many other leaders who were not arrested were summoned by the ED for interrogation at this building, including Shiv Sena leaders Bhavna Gawli, Rahul Kanal, and Pratap Sarnaik. Sarnaik, who is currently with Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena and a minister in the Mahayuti government, was so worried after receiving a notice from the ED in 2021 that he wrote a letter to Uddhav Thackeray urging him to mend ties with the BJP.

In Maharashtra's political circles, the Kaiser-I-Hind building is also known as the "magical building" because politicians often change their stance after visiting it. Many leaders have changed their political affiliations after being interrogated here. One such case is that of MNS chief Raj Thackeray.

In 2019, before the Lok Sabha polls, Thackeray held rallies across Maharashtra where he criticised PM Narendra Modi and the BJP using Modi's old sound bites. After the elections, he was summoned by the ED in a decade-old case and interrogated for around eight hours. Following that visit, Thackeray stopped targeting the BJP and extended unconditional support to the party in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

While the ED is under the scanner from the opposition after the fire incident, it has issued a clarification. According to the ED, important documents have been digitally stored, and the incident will not affect any ongoing investigations or trials. Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis defended the ED, saying there is nothing to worry about as all documents have backups. Prima facie, it appears to be a case of a short circuit in the electrical system.