Police chief cagey: ‘Let me read order’

Police commissioner D N Jadhav

Archana Sharma and Mateen Hafeez|TNN

Mumbai: If the Mumbai police was rattled by judge Ajit Mishra’s open show of displeasure regarding the way the department investigated the Carter Road accident, it didn’t show at the commissionerate.

TOI spoke to police chief Dhananjay Jadhav after the court sentenced Alistair Pareira to six months imprisonment. Jadhav didn’t seem flustered and stuck to an “I-have-to-readthe-judgment’’ refrain. EXCERPTS:

Q. Pareira has been sentenced to six months of simple imprisonment for rash driving by the court. Are you satisfied with the judgment?
A. It all depends on the text of the judgment, on what basis the judge has given the sentence. Without reading that I won’t be able to give my reaction on the judgment.

Q. The accident led to the death of 7 people. Will you appeal against the judgment?
A. Going on appeal cannot be an offhand or an emotional reaction. We have to follow a procedure. After we consult with the prosecution, we forward a report to the Home department, which then releases a Government Resolution if we are going on appeal.

Q. What do you have to say about the investigating officers reportedly bungling up the evidence?
A. I have to read the judgment and study what was presented before the court and what was not. We have to see if the evidence presented was indeed poor.

Q. But an elementary thing like the blood report and results of the urine samples tested to establish whether alcohol was found in the accused’s body while driving was not placed before the court.
A. I will have to know why the evidence was not presented. Whether it contradicted with somebody else’s testimony, all such things will have to be studied.

Q. What do you have to say about the fact that the pictures which were submitted to the court, were not the positives of the pictures clicked by the photographer appointed by the police?
A. We will see what comments the judge has made regarding that. And if there is any lapse by the investigating officers, it will be taken care of.

The Times of India, April 14, 2007

Agrawal case: Police to quiz kidnap kingpin

ABDUCTION RING

Mateen Hafeez | TNN

Mumbai: Dreaded extortionist Sayyed Aabid Hussain alias Alibhai, who was deported from Dubai last month, is likely to be questioned by the Mumbai police crime branch in the Raj Agrawal abduction case. Ali is charged in at least seven big abduction cases in several states. In every case, he had demanded more than Rs 1 crore as ransom.

Ali, 34, who is now in the custody of the Jubilee Hills police in Hyderabad, is said to be an associate of kidnap kingpin Aftab Aalam of UP.

“We have spoken to the Hyderabad police and will take custody of Ali on a transfer warrant once his police custody is over in at least five abduction cases in Hyderabad. He was found travelling on a fake passport in the UAE and was deported to India,’’ crime branch unit II head Jaywant Hargude said.

Ali’s name cropped up in the three-year-old Raj Agrawal abduction case when the crime branch was interrogating deported Dawood Ibrahim associate Abdul Qayyum. The latter told the police that Ali, along with Aalam, was running an organised abduction syndicate across the country. A resident of Watanbaug in Andhra Pradesh, Ali fled to Dubai around five years ago.

In the Agrawal case, Raj, a 14-year-old Class IX student, was on his way to DPYA High School in Matunga on November 18, 2003, when he was abducted. His captors took him to an abandoned village near Daund, 100 km from Pune, and kept him there for 10 days. An unidentified person then called up Raj’s father, Kunjbihari, a real estate agent and money-lender, and demanded a ransom of Rs 5 crore to be paid through hawala. The callers were using the satellite network and the police could not track their location.

Kunjbihari, a resident of Dimple Apartment (that shared the compound with RAK Marg police station), blamed the police for interfering in the case after he failed to get his son rescued even after paying the ransom. “Those who kidnapped Raj handed him over to another group which took him to Daund. But one of the kidnappers, at whose house Raj was kept, feared Raj would identify them later and so they strangled him to death and buried him there,’’ a crime branch officer said.

It was only after four and a half months, when the gang kidnapped another boy from Hyderabad and kept him at Daund, that the Hyderabad police managed to get some links. The police then picked up six youths from Mumbai, four from Daund and two from Hyderabad. “The police then recovered Raj’s body. His father, however, refused to identify him, saying he was not his son. Ten of the accused are in jail and two are out on bail. The verdict is expected next month,’’ an official said.
mateen.hafeez@timesgroup.com


The Times of India, April 14, 2007

New twist in supari case

IN THE DOCK: Builder Rajendra Chaturvedi was arrested for his alleged involvement in a plot to eliminate a rival builder

Probe Into Builder’s Plot To Kill Rival Shows Discrepancies

Mateen Hafeez I TNN

Mumbai: Questions are now being raised regarding the investigations into a contract allegedly issued by a builder to kill a rival. The Juhu police have so far arrested six people including managing director of Shreepati Builders Rajendra Chaturvedi for his alleged involvement in a plot to eliminate rival builder Rashmikant Shah of the Vijay group.

The police had initially said that they had arrested four people including a man named Vijay Warkar, who allegedly hired two shooters to kill Shah outside Hotel Holiday Inn on February 25. Police claimed to have arrested the four people, seized weapons including two revolvers and two choppers and recovered Rs 12.5 lakh from them.

However, some discrepancies are now emerging in the police’s version. Sources said that Shah was never scheduled to turn up at the hotel in the first place. Secondly, the weapons were recovered from the residence of one of the accused and not seized from the spot, as initially claimed by police. There are also doubts being raised over the money recovered from the gang. “Those who want to eliminate someone would come with weapons and not with Rs 12.5 lakh in cash,’’ said an officer on condition of anonymity.

The police had said that they intercepted the gang and found Shah’s photo with the number of his car written behind it. However, inquiries revealed that the number did not belong to Shah’s vehicle. Interestingly, assistant subinspector Jagdish Sail, who claimed to have foiled the conspiracy and arrested the four men, left for a six-week training course in Italy a few days after the arrests were made.

Chaturvedi was arrested on March 15. His arrest was followed by that of spiritual leader Baba Udaynath Maharaj who has been booked on similar charges.

“The four accused apparently told the police that Maharaj had issued a contract to eliminate Shah because he was not ready give up his claim on a plot worth Rs 500 crore at Kalachowkie. As for Chaturvedi, they have arrested him on the basis of a statement given by the same four men,’’ said a police officer. “Going by that logic, they should have also grilled Shah because the four had also alleged that Shah’s men abducted Maharaj from Kalachowkie in January and took him to Kalyan jail for a meeting with gangster Ashwin Naik,’’ the officer said.

Sources said the case was increasingly getting murky and needed a thorough probe. A senior police officer’s role, in particular, needed scrutiny, said sources. “Though the case has been registered with Juhu police, the accused have not been kept here. They are kept in some other lock-up for reasons better known to some officers only,’’ a source said.

When contacted, Bipin Bihari, additional commissioner of police (western region), who is in overall charge of the probe, refused to comment on these issues. Regarding Shah’s involvement in the case, he said, “I don’t know if the four accused have said that Maharaj was kidnapped on the instructions of Rashmikant Shah.’’

mateen.hafeez@timesgroup.com

The Times of India, April 11, 2007

Cops to be evaluated on attitude towards backward classes

Mateen Hafeez | TNN

Mumbai: Cops will now be judged by their attitude toward backward classes too. This new parameter has been added in the police force’s annual confidential report (ACR).

While a section of police officers appreciated the move, many feared it could be misused against them by ‘vindictive’ seniors.

ACR forms were sent to several police offices last week. But the cops were asked to return the old forms and write the ACR in the newly-printed forms as the “attitude towards backward class’’ parameter was not included in them.

Police sources said a good posting and increment depended on the ACR made by an officer of ACP rank and reviewed by seniors. The changes have been made in the ACR forms for officers from PSI to ACP rank.

The section, which has options like ‘helpful’, ‘sympathetic’, ‘unsympathetic’ and ‘neutral’, has been added in Part IV (estimate of general ability and character of officers) of the ACR form.
DGP P S Pasricha could not be contacted for comment.

mateen.hafeez@timesgroup.com

The Times of India, April 8, 2007

Spiritual guru arrested in plot to kill builder

COURTING TROUBLE: Baba Udaynath Maharaj comes out of the high court after his bail plea was rejected on Thursday

Mateen Hafeez I TNN

Mumbai: Spiritual leader Baba Udaynath Maharaj (27) has been arrested by the Juhu police on charges of attempt to murder and for issuing a Rs 50-lakh supari to kill a builder, Rashmikant Shah of Vijay Group. Maharaj, the sixth person to be arrested in the case, was taken into custody soon after the Bombay high court rejected his bail application on Thursday.

Rajendra Chaturvedi, the man who constructed the country’s tallest building in south Mumbai, was the first person to be arrested in this case on March 15, allegedly for plotting to kill a rival builder. Chaturvedi, managing director of Shreepati Builders, along with Maharaj, was accused of having contracted to kill Shah for Rs 50 lakh.

“Maharaj has been arrested for issuing a supari and on charges similar to those made against Chaturvedi. He will be produced before the court on Friday,’’ Pradip Shinde, senior inspector of the Juhu police, said.

Shah was redeveloping a huge plot worth Rs 500 crore at Parel since 2002.

But, since the project’s progress was slow, residents approached Maharaj requesting him to find a builder known to him. Maharaj then called Chaturvedi and asked him to take up the project in December 2006. But since Shah was not willing to give up the project, Maharaj and Chaturvedi hired four Chhota Rajan gangsters—Nisar Jaffar, Aslam Khan, Qasim Qureishi and Vijay Vadkar—to kill Shah. The four shooters were arrested on February 25 when they were waiting for Shah outside Hotel Holiday Inn. Vadkar told the police that he was paid Rs 12.5 lakh in advance and was also promised a hotel at Mahabaleshwar for killing Shah.

Maharaj runs a 20,000 sq ft math in Satara district and also owns 18 acres of land. He came to Mumbai a decade ago and became popular among politicians, top policemen and struggling film personalities. He is said to have over a lakh followers across Maharashtra; Chaturvedi was one of them.

The police are probing Maharaj’s properties and trying to find out how he managed to construct the math. They are also investigating the role of gangster Ashwin Naik in the case. Maharaj had allegedly gone to Kalyan Central jail where Naik is lodged.

The police say Chaturvedi is a former classmate of Naik and that they are probing his links with the gangster.

Highly placed officials said though Naik is jail, he still wields clout in the Kalachowky-Parel belt in Central Mumbai.

“We suspect a bigger conspiracy in this case. It is a case of a builder-underworld nexus. We will interrogate Naik, too, if needed,’’ said an officer.
mateen.hafeez@timesgroup.com


The Times of India, April 6, 2007

Kingfisher scam accused involved in SIM card theft

Mateen Hafeez I TNN

Mumbai: Investigations into the theft of seven international SIM cards from Mahalaxmi have revealed a link between the accused and those arrested by the economic offences wing (EOW) for fraudulently booking 15,255 tickets of Kingfisher Airlines, causing a loss of Rs 13.47 crore.

The NM Joshi Marg police probing the SIM card theft case have taken Nazir Shaikh into custody on a transfer warrant from the EOW. Shaikh was first arrested in the Kingfisher case in February.

Sub-inspector Deepak Chauhan of the NM Joshi Marg police said that seven SIM cards were stolen in the last week of January from Metric Cellular India Pvt Ltd, located near Famous Studio. The company rents out international SIM cards to those who go abroad and charges them the bill and its fee. The stolen SIM cards were used for making national and international calls from an STD booth in Dubai.

Nazir and his accomplices had given the cards to people in Dubai on a rent of Rs 2,500 per day for each card.

“In January, the officials of the firm saw the printout of records of all the mobile phone calls and found that the bills on the seven SIM cards totalled Rs 38 lakh. They checked the record but found that the cards were stolen. One of the thousands of calls from one of the SIM cards was made to a land line in Kurla on January 11. The next day, the SIM card was traced to Dubai. We came to know that one Hilal Farooqui, who works as an electrician in Dubai, had taken that card and left for Dubai,’’ Chauhan said.

The police later arrested a Nasik resident, Khurram, in the case. He said that the complainant firm’s business development executive, Suraj Ahir, (27), had stolen the card from his company and had given it to him.

Khurram later told Farooqui to deliver this card to someone in Dubai. “Farooqui didn’t know that the cards were stolen and, therefore, he will be a witness in our case,’’ said the police. Khurram, Ahir and Nazir have been sent to police custody.

The police are trying to collect information about the accused in the SIM card and the Kingfisher cases.

The police have arrested 14 persons, including Abdul Qayyum, an employee of hotel at Andheri, two call centre employees and two unemployed youths, Nazir and Shabbir, alias Arbaz, in the Kingfisher case. Qayyum used to steal credit card data from customers’ card and sell the information to Nazir and Arbaz, who used the data to book online air tickets. The police found the two were involved in at least 16 such transaction.

mateen.hafeez@timesgroup.com

The Times of India, April 3, 2007

MALEGAON BLASTS - ‘Cop offered me lakhs to get arrested’

Director-general of police, P S Pasricha

Plot To Frame Locals: Informer

Mateen Hafeez | TNN

Mumbai: A 35-year-old police informer from Malegaon told director-general of police P S Pasricha on Friday that Krishna Prakash, superintendent of Amravati police, allegedly offered him lakhs of rupees to get himself arrested with a consignment of arms and ammunition. The police, he claimed, had hatched a conspiracy to implicate several residents of Malegaon in the blasts case. Pasricha ordered an inquiry into the case.

The informer, Abdus Salam, is a resident of the Fort area of Malegaon. He is at present externed from the jurisdiction of Malegaon. Police sources in Malegaon said Salam is involved in two murder cases, three attempts to murder and two incidents of rioting. He apparently gave information to several senior police officers in the textile town.

Salam was accompanied by office-bearers of Jamiat-ul-Ulema, an NGO, to Pasricha’s office. He alleged that Prakash called him to a bungalow in Amravati on March 18 and offered money in the presence of a plainclothes police officer from Delhi. The informer alleged that he was also shown firearms and ammunition at the bungalow. “Prakash told me that the police would nab me with this consignment and I would have to name several people from Malegaon in this case. Prakash also assured me that I would be released soon,’’ alleged Salam.

Salam further claimed that Prakash was constantly in touch with Malegaon’s additional superintendent of police Rajesh Pradhan while he was making the offer.

Prakash dismissed the allegation, saying, “He called me up and wanted help since he was externed from Malegaon. I never called him up. His mobile record should be examined. I arranged a room for him and offered him breakfast. Someone is trying to gain political mileage from this issue.”

Pasricha said: “He (Salam) has complained to me and I have instructed inspector-general of police P K Jain to look probe the matter. I am personally monitoring the inquiry, but it seems that this man (Salam) does not have a good reputation. There are several loopholes in his statement.’’

Pradhan, said: “I have not spoken to Prakash for the past three to four months. This is a baseless allegation and is being looked into by senior officers. Everything will be clear once the probe is over.’’

mateen.hafeez@timesgroup.com

The Times of India, April 1, 2007