The newspapers were raving about my report. I reached the office early in the morning and filed my second report. Whereas the first report only exposed the role of R.S. Sharma in the corruption, the second report had a summary of allegations against all eight corrupt police officers listed together. This was again an exclusive report. The same day, R.S. Sharma invited all crime reporters of Mumbai newspapers and gave off-the-record clarifications on all matters published so far.
Sharma told the journalists this was scandal-mongering by those who had lost the race to him to become Mumbai’s police commissioner. The arrow pointed towards Thane’s commissioner S.M. Shangari. No TV reporter was called inside. NDTV reporter Sameeran Walvekar was treated abominably, being made to sit outside Sharma’s office and not granted an interview either until the end. I received another report by Subodh Jaiswal through a ‘source’ on the same day. Written on 10 January, this report too was sensational in its own way.
In October 2002, Mumbai Police had arrested Telgi in a murder case. But despite being in police custody for eighty-five days, Telgi was not put in the police lockup for even a single day. He was made to stay either at his Cuffe Parade residence, his Colaba flat or at Sion’s Hotel Ashray and provided all kinds of comforts in police custody. But this game ended on 9 January 2003, when the Maharashtra SIT and Karnataka SIT raided Telgi’s Cuffe Parade house under a joint operation.
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This raid was supervised by Maharashtra SIT Chief DIG Subodh Jaiswal and Karnataka SIT Chief Additional DGP R. Sri Kumar. They were amazed at the scene they witnessed there. The house that Pune Police had allegedly sealed was open, with the seal broken. Inside, Telgi was comfortably at home, having tea and biscuits. Two police constables were seen enjoying food made by Telgi’s servants and the third constable was fast asleep in the adjacent room.
Assistant Inspector Dilip Kamath, who was in-charge of the investigation, was missing from there. Jaiswal declared Mumbai Police’s clarification of calling this a ploy to trap a warranted criminal baseless and dubious. Jaiswal sent his report dated 10 January 2003 to Ashok Basak, additional chief secretary (home). In his report, Jaiswal described the scene:
On 09/01/2003 Jaiswal along with R. Sri Kumar (Addl DGP, Karnataka and head of Karnataka SIT) and few other members of SIT visited various spots in Mumbai where seizures of Telgi’s fake stamps have taken place. After visiting Dana Bandar and Carnac Bandar areas, the team left for visiting spots in Cuffe Parade and Colaba areas. They reached 7, Cuffe Parade. 7, Cuffe Parade is a flat where seizures had taken place earlier in the Pune case. At 4.45 p.m. on 09/01/2003 SIT rang the doorbell. There was delay in opening the entrance door of the flat. The door was opened by a person in civvies who was later identified as a police constable of Mumbai Crime Branch. Two more police constables were present in the flat out of which one was sleeping in adjacent room. All three policemen were in plainclothes.
On entering the flat, SIT found signs of regular habitation in flat and Telgi was also present in flat. Telgi was sitting comfortably in his office room enjoying tea–biscuits. Inside the house, personal garments of Telgi were neatly laid and the bed showed signs of regular usage. A bag belonging to Telgi consisting of his medicines and some clothes was also found on the table.
Inside the flat, there were two young boys one of whom was busy cooking in the kitchen while the other was looking after the household. There was absolutely no doubt that Telgi had been conscientiously taken to the flat to enjoy the luxurious normal life while still in the police custody with full connivance of police personnel, instead of being in the police lock-up. On questioning, it was revealed that they had come to the spot along with police officer Dilip Kamath of Crime Branch who was incidentally not present in the flat.
On further questioning, the constables replied that they were waiting in a trap laid to arrest suspected accused Tabrej. According to Jaiswal, in this report, the alleged raison d’être for the physical presence of Telgi in his own flat while being in police custody, which was made out by the police personnel of waiting in a trap, does not hold water for the following reasons:
- If it was a trap, then one policeman wouldn’t have been sleeping the way he was.
- In-charge of the team, Assistant Inspector Dilip Kamath should have been present to spring the trap, if at all the reason was true. Intriguingly, his physical absence from the scene totally falsifies the assertions of the police personnel about the actual cause of their presence.
- The presence of Telgi’s clothes bag at the flat belies any reason whatsoever that any such trap had actually been planned.
- It is obviously foolish to expect the absconding Tabrej to show up at a flat to meet the arrested Telgi or anybody else, unless it was being planned to arrange a clandestine meeting between Telgi, his lawyer and the other accomplice, with full and clear complicity of the Mumbai Crime Branch policemen.
- If it was a trap, then the door should have been opened immediately since they had been anticipating the arrival of the absconding accused. This was not done.
- No physical measures were put into place to prevent an escape attempt by Telgi.
- The overall state of ‘relaxed inaction’ and ‘air of levity’ in the flat precludes any possibility of a police trap being put in place.
- The presence of two servants in the flat also makes the ‘trap story’ totally improbable and impossible.
This excerpt from Sanjay Singh’s ‘Telgi: A Reporter’s Diary’ has been published with permission from HarperCollins India.