Jubilee Post News & Views
To those who may not be aware of his antecedents, Anil Deshmukh was the Home Minister of Maharashtra until the Antilia case blew up in his face. Antilia is the private residence of tycoon Mukesh Ambani and Mumbai woke up on February 25, 2021, to hear the shocking news that explosives in the form of 20 gelatin sticks and a letter in broken English threatening Mukesh and Nita Ambani were found in a Scorpio parked outside the Ambani residence.
As the investigations began, several policemen, including Mumbai’s Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) headed by Sachin Vaze, reached the spot for investigations. Vaze took over as the lead investigator in the case. He was earlier an encounter specialist who had been suspended from the force and had been reinstated and handed over charge of the CIU.
On March 5, after the body of a Thane-based businessman Mansukh Hirenwas found in a creek at Thane, the case was handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Before his mysterious death, Hiren had claimed that the Scorpio found outside the Ambani residence was his and had been stolen a week earlier and he had reported the incident.
Reports began emerging about the hasty manner in which Vaze had been reinstated after his suspension on March 3, 2004, along with 14 other policemen on murder charges in the custodial death of Khwaja Yunus, a suspect in the 2002 Ghatkopar bombing case. Vaze had subsequently quit the police force in November 2007 after his requests for reinstatement were rejected by the Maharashtra Government.On June 6, 2020,Vaze’s suspension was revoked by the Maharashtra government led by Uddhav Thackeray and he was reinstated.A year later Vaze led the Raigad police team in the arrest of Republic TV editor-in-chief, Arnab Goswami in March 2021.
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, stoutly defended Chief Minister Thackeray and Home Minister Deshmukh claiming neither was responsible for Vaze’s reinstatement. However, who reinstated Deshmukh was left answered. As the investigations gathered pace, the skeletons came tumbling out and the things went dramatically south for Vaze, Deshmukh and Parambir Singh, then the Mumbai Police Commissioner.
The NIA sources claimed after investigations that the Scorpio was never missing but parked in CIU head Sachin Vaze’s housing society. It also identified the person seen in the Scorpio outside Antilia as the lead investigator of the CIU, Sachi Vaze himself. He was identified in the CCTV cameras outside the Ambani residence walking to and from the suspect SUV. He was summoned for questioning and after 12 hours of interrogation, he was arrested and sent to police custody. The printer on which the threat letter to the Ambanis was printed was also recovered from arrested police constable Vinayak Shinde’s flat.
It looked like an inside job and as the worms began to emerge the revelations sent shockwaves through the state and the country. On March 17, Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh was transferred. Soon after, he sent a detailed letter to the Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackerayalleging that Vaze was involved in a scheme to collect ₹100 Crore from businesses in Mumbai per month under directions from his State Home Minister Anil Deshmukh.
‘Hafta vasooli’ is the oldest trick in the book to collect money from shopkeepers, restaurateurs and bar owners, and no one was surprised by these revelations. But that the home minister was quoted as having told the police officer to do so was a bit of a shock. There were denials from Deshmukh but Singh stuck to his story. Soon after, a cornered Deshmukh stepped down and moved the courts for bail, fearing arrest.
On April 21, the Enforcement Directorate(ED) registered a money laundering case against Deshmukh after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a first information report (FIR) against him. The central agency alleged that the home minister misused his position and through assistant police inspector Sachin Vaze collected ₹4.7 crore from Mumbai’s bars for their “smooth functioning”.
On July 7, the Bombay High Court told the CBI to probe the corruption FIR against Deshmukh and others.The bench referred to Supreme Court’s observations in its April 8 order where it stated that Deshmukh and Param Bir Singh were working in “confidence with each other” and the CBI should probe this aspect.
The bench orally observed that the highest functionaries could not be let off. “The minister might have been told to reinstate (dismissed Mumbai Police officer Sachin Waze), but can the person holding the main post say I will obey them and not perform my duties? The committee which reinstated Waze can be probed…”
“Whoever was the head of executive or administration, holding the main post at that time, cannot plead innocence saying that some executive told and I was helpless. It was equally the duty of that officer, who was holding the main post to prevent it at the relevant time. We expect from the CBI a broad-based investigation,” it added.
It was virtuallya signal for all the investigating teams to turn the heat on Deshmukh. In mid-July, the ED provisionally attached Deshmukh’s properties, worth ₹4.2 crore that included a flat and some land. The flat,in the upmarket area of Worli in Mumbai, was purchased by the NCP leader in 2004 entirely in cash and registered in the name of his wife Aarti, but the sale deed for the flat was registered in February 2020 after he became the home minister.
Also Read : Climate change fueling Monsoon mayhem in India, extreme weather events to rise further
The Enforcement Directorate sent Deshmukh and his wife the first summons but they refused to answer it. Three more summons were sent, the last one on August 2, but all of them have been ignored. To add to his troubles, the CBI recently began probing his role in the television rating point (TRP) manipulation case after the agency discovered that ₹25 lakh was allegedly paid by the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) to Vaze for stopping harassment in the case. His people deliver his letters to the investigating agencies but Deshmukh is neither around to answer the summons or any queries posed to him. While his lawyers file appeals on his behalf in the High Court and the Supreme Court, he has disappeared and no one can locate him as of now.
