Antilia scare: Mumbai CP Param Bir Singh transferred out in Maharashtra govt’s damage control exercise, BJP unimpressed

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 17

With the NIA zeroing on controversial Mumbai cop Sachin Vaze (now suspended) and the opposition BJP on Wednesday alluding “betting and extortion links between him and important persons in the government”, trouble is mounting for the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Aghadi in Maharashtra.  

Under flak over “mishandling” of the bomb scare outside billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s residence, the Maharashtra government today replaced Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh with senior IPS officer Hemant Nagrale.

Read also | Explosive near Ambani residence: NIA says looking at involvement  of ‘other players’

“Big decision of the government. Shri Hemant Nagrale will be the new Mumbai Police Commissioner. Shri Rajnish Seth will have the additional charge of the post of Director General of Police, Maharashtra.”

“Shri Sanjay Pandey will have the responsibility of Maharashtra State Security Corporation. Shri Param Bir Singh will have the responsibility of the Home Guard,” Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh tweeted following day-long meetings with Thackeray and other senior leaders of the Aghadi on damage control. 

However, terming Param Bir and Vaze “small players”, former Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis said those “operating Vaze are still sitting in the government”.

READ: Number plate of SUV near Ambani home found hidden in Sachin Vaze’s Mercedes: NIA

“Who will investigate them,” he questioned.

“This is not a failure of Police but the government,” said Fadnavis, claiming “deeper links” between Vaze and Shiv Sena.

Fadnavis said “Uddhav and many other Sena leaders” approached him to get the suspended high-profile cop reinstated. He also alleged that Vaze, who also served as a “spokesperson” of the party, had “business relations” with “active members of the party”.

“Why was Sachin Vaze taken back? When I was the CM there was pressure on me from Uddhav Thackeray that he should be reinstated. Looking at his record I decided to consult the Accountant General who told me that the High Court had suspended him, and a serious inquiry is going on against him which is when I decided not to reinstate him,” said Fadnavis. 

READ: While NIA zeroes on Vaze, 'trouble' in Maharashtra's Aghadi government

Giving the sequence of events that led to Vaze “killing Mansukh Hiren and throwing his body in the creek,” he claimed ATS, and NIA had audiotapes of Mansukh and Vaze. All cases are handed over to the NIA as “required actions are not being taken by ATS,” he said. “Investigating agencies should not come under any pressure now, howsoever important are the people with whom Vaze’s connections are established. Vaze was running extortion net, he had links with those running betting racket in Mumbai. The biggest link Mansukh has been murdered. Never in recent history, Mumbai and Maharashtra witnessed such criminalisation of politics. It was in the nineties we saw criminalisation of politics in the way,” said Fadnavis.

BJP leader Kirit Somaiya has alleged that Vaze had six businesses and two Shiv Sena leaders were his business partners. Another party leader, Nitesh Rane, accused him and “a cousin of Aaditya Thackeray of running an IPL extortion racket”. 

Though Sena leaders claim Vaze, who is said to have carried out “63 encounters in his career”, was never an active member of the party.

Vaze was suspended from the police force in 2004 in connection with the murder and destruction of evidence in the case related to the custodial death of Khwaja Yunus, a bomb blast accused arrested in 2002. Though he made several attempts to get reinstated before he resigned and joined Sena in 2008, Vaze was reinstated last year “due to staff shortage amid the COVID-19 pandemic”. 

Yesterday, the NIA seized a Mercedes car containing the original number plate of explosives-laden Scorpio found abandoned outside Ambani’s residence and cash worth more than Rs 5 lakh apart from other items.

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