Mumbai: Two senior officers of the Mumbai Police who were a part of the Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) had been transferred on 9 June last year, allegedly to accommodate suspended assistant police inspector Sachin Waze, according to a report submitted to the state home department by the Mumbai Police.
One of the senior officers included the police inspector who headed the CIU, the elite intelligence collection agency of the Mumbai Police Crime Branch (CB), ThePrint has learnt.
On the same day, 9 June, Waze was assigned to head the CIU by then police commissioner Param Bir Singh, though according to protocol such a responsibility is only entrusted to an officer of police inspector rank, sources who have accessed the report told ThePrint.
Waze is presently in the custody of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the Ambani terror scare case. Param Bir Singh was transferred to the low-key Home Guard department last month, for his handling of the the case, though he has so far denied any wrongdoing on his part. Waze too has as yet denied all allegations against him in the Ambani case in court.
According to the report, the CIU appointment brought Waze back to the Mumbai Police; he had been serving a suspension for over 16 years after his arrest in the Khwaja Yunus suspected custodial death case in March 2004.
The report, sources told ThePrint, states that according to the verbal orders of Singh, the then Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Santosh Rastogi had issued an order that transferred two CIU officers to other Crime Branch units and brought in Waze to head the intelligence collection wing.
The 9 June order shifted the CIU’s then chief, police inspector Vinay Ghorpade, to the Crime Branch’s Unit 10 (in Andheri East), while another senior officer, police inspector Sudhakar Deshmukh, was transferred to the Crime Branch’s Unit 1 (in South Mumbai).
ThePrint reached Param Bir Singh via texts and calls on his mobile for a comment on the allegations made in the report, but there was no response till the time of publishing this report. His lawyer declined to comment.
Also read: Sachin Waze reinstated in CIU in June 2020 at Param Bir Singh’s behest — Mumbai Police
Appointed despite opposition
Waze’s stint in the CIU began on 10 June. According to the report, Rastogi had allegedly strongly opposed the move to bring in Waze.
The report said, between 10 June and 21 March 2021, Waze was allegedly directly and independently reporting to Singh, bypassing the usual hierarchy in the Crime Branch, on critical aspects related to CIU probes. These included issues related to summoning of witnesses/accused persons in important cases, moving of remand applications and anticipatory bail applications and points to be added from CIU inputs.
Waze had initiated 17 probes in all while heading the CIU, including those related to the recovery of an explosives-laden Scorpio near businessman Mukesh Ambani’s south Mumbai residence, Antilia, on 25 February, the case in which the NIA arrested him on 13 March, leading to his suspension.
Also read: Interrogating a tough Mumbai cop: How NIA is struggling to ‘break’ Sachin Waze
Disregarding hierarchy
Other important cases probed by Waze included the TRP scam and the DC (Dilip Chhabria) car finance case. According to the report, Waze would allegedly attend ministerial briefings with Param Bir Singh in all important cases being probed by the CIU. He would then convey to other senior officers in the Crime Branch the decisions taken at the higher level regarding the direction of investigation in such cases and also the points discussed during these meetings, the report claimed.
Although the police had allocated three official vehicles to the CIU for its use, Waze would at times allegedly arrive at the office — located in the compound of the office of the commissioner of police, in south Mumbai — in high-end luxury cars like Mercedes Benz, Audi and other private vehicles, the report claimed.
After his arrest in the Ambani case, the NIA had conducted searches at the CIU office on 15 March and seized incriminating documents and other materials from his cabin.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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