- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Shubham Ghosh
INDIA’S National Investigation Agency on Thursday (17) arrested former “encounter specialist” police officer and Shiv Sena leader Pradeep Sharma in Mumbai for his alleged involvement in the ‘Antilia’ bomb scare case and the murder of businessman Mansukh Hiren.
According to an official source, a team from the agency picked Sharma from Lonavala near Mumbai late on Wednesday (16) night and took him to the agency’s office in South Mumbai for questioning. The source said that the agency also carried out a raid at his residence located in JB Nagar in Mumbai’s Andheri (West) around 6 in the morning and the operation lasted for several hours. It was said that the officials found some incriminating documents from Sharma’s house.
After grilling Sharma for a few hours, the agency placed him under arrest on Thursday and he, along with two others, was produced before a special National Investigation Agency court on Thursday. The arrest came around two months after the agency questioned Sharma at its office for two days after his name surfaced in connection to the case.
Sharma, who took voluntary retirement, had headed the anti-extortion cell of Thane crime branch and also contested the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election which he lost.
He is the fifth person from the police department to be arrested by the National Investigation Agency in the high-profile case. The agency has earlier arrested former police officers Sachin Waze, Riyazuddin Kazi, Sunil Mane, former constable Vinayak Shinde and cricket bookie Naresh Gour. It also arrested Santosh Shelar and Anand Jadhav from Malad area in connection to this case and Sharma is now the eighth overall to get arrested.
The case:
On February 25, an Indian-made SUV, filled with 20 loose gelatin sticks and a threatening note, was found abandoned near ‘Antilia’, the residence of industrialist Mukesh Ambani in South Mumbai. A case was registered the same day.
Vaze, who was an assistant police inspector then, originally investigated the case but after reports emerged of his links with Hiran, who owned the vehicle which got reportedly stolen on February 17, he was removed from the probe. On March 4, Hiren went missing and his body was found a day later in a creek in Mumbai. Reports said that it emerged Vaze had borrowed the vehicle last November and returned it to Hiren before the Antilia incident came to the headlines in February. The National Investigation Agency took over the case on March 8 and Vaze was arrested five days later. On March 24, the National Investigation Agency took over the case pertaining to Hiren’s death and Vaze was named as the main accused in the killing.
The Shiv Sena-led government of Maharashtra transferred Param Bir Singh as the police commissioner of Mumbai, alleging mismanagement of the case. Singh then wrote a letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, saying state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh had asked Vaze and some other officers of Mumbai Police to extort huge money from bars, restaurants, etc. Yet when no action was taken, Singh moved the courts.
The Bombay High Court eventually gave the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation for a preliminary probe and it was the resignation of Deshmukh.
Meanwhile, the National Investigation Agency sources informed that six new handkerchiefs were found stuffed in Hiren’s mouth at the time of recovery of his body and they were reportedly purchased from a vendor outside the Kalwa railway station on March 4. It was also said that the agency seized CCTV footage showing a person buying the handkerchiefs and he looked like Vaze.
The National Investigation Agency has already secured the CCTV footage showing Vaze travelling from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus to Thane by a train in the evening of March 4, even though he said that he was at the criminal intelligence unit that he headed at the time. The agency and Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad officers who probed the case before the Central Bureau of Investigation took over claimed that Vaze had met Hiren at Thane before the latter was allegedly kidnapped and killed in a car. Police suspect his body was dumped later.
Vaze allegedly tried to convince Hiren to take the blame for placing the explosives-laden vehicle near Ambani’s residence and according to another officer, Vaze also tried to convince Hiren that he would get him out on bail in a few days. But when Hiren still refused, it was allegedly decided to eliminate him.
