Up in flames

Mahesh Majrekar is finally making a film which the whole city has been talking about in Chinese whispers — how the mills in Mumbai are being sabotaged to make way for real estate development.

The under-production film —which shows a section of the government officers hand-in-glove with criminals regarding sabotage of the mill properties — has come under the scanner for government agencies as well.

Sources confirmed that the under-production film, which is interestingly named City of Gold, has an entire sequence that shows how a mill is being sabotaged because it is a prime property worth hundreds of crores. The sequence is interestingly very similar to the suspected incidents that led to the fire at the Gold Mohur Mills near Dadar.

“The sequence shows that a mill is being burned down by criminals because a few people want to sell the property to real estate developers. The film shows how exactly the mill was sabotaged,” says a source.

Initial investigations at Gold Mohur Mills are also pointing at exactly the same sequence of events.

Mahesh admitted that he had been receiving calls ever since this fact has come to light. “I do have an entire sequence where I show that a mill was being burned down and it turned out to be a little similar to what happened at Gold Mohur. But then, that is what is happening in Mumbai since the 1960s. Yes, I have been receiving calls from a lot of people asking about how I got the plot and I have told everybody that the germ of my script was from a play called Adhyantar by Jayant Pawar. I haven’t got a threat so far,” Mahesh said.

At the same time, Mahesh admitted that his film is based on actual incidents. “Every incident in the play is genuine. And I have tried to show how a section of corrupt officials are sabotaging mill property for monetary gains for decades now. I have also tried to show how this racket actually gave rise to the once famous underworld in Mumbai,” he ends.

Mill fires in Mumbai...
1965 - Madhav Mill at Grant Road
1967 - Moon Mill at Sewri.
1968 - Dhanraj Mills at Lower     Parel
1977 - Phoenix Mills at Lower Parel.
2002 - Matulya Mill on Senapati Bapat Marg.
2002 - Swadeshi Mill at Kurla.
2004 - Khatau at Byculla, had a re-run of the same incidents.
2005 - Sitaram Mills at Byculla
2006 - Moraraji Mills at Lalbaug.
2009 - New Great Mill at Byculla.