Ambani bomb scare: MVA govt transfers Mumbai top cop Param Bir Singh

Singh has been posted as DG Home Guards, while DGP Hemant Nagrale will be the new city police chief, Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh tweeted.

Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh was shunted out from the top post in the city police and replaced with Hemant Nagrale, a 1987 batch Indian Police Service officer who had been appointed to officiate as Maharashtra police chief just two months earlier, Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh announced on Twitter.

The unceremonious exit of the police commissioner comes after the ruling coalition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) had to face embarrassing moments when the arrest of Sachin Vaze, a city police officer who had probed the explosives found in an abandoned vehicle near billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani residence in Mumbai on February 25.

“State government’s key decision—Shri Hemant Nagrale to become the new police commissioner of Mumbai. Rajnish Sheth will be the acting director general of police. Shri Sanjay Pandey will be director general of Maharashtra State Security Corporation. Shri Param Bir Singh will head the home guards,” Deshmukh tweeted in Marathi.

Investigations by the National Investigation Agency, or NIA, which arrested Vaze, suggest that the police officer was behind the bomb scare, which he orchestrated as part of a conspiracy to restore his reputation as a successful cop. Vaze is also being investigated for links to the death of Thane-based businessman Mansukh Hiran.

The revelations have led to red faces in the ruling coalition which had rejected demands from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for action against Vaze. When Deshmukh first announced the decision to transfer Vaze out of the criminal intelligence unit (CIU) in the crime branch, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had declared that the government wouldn’t spare the guilty but faulted the opposition for painting the police officer as 'Osama Bin Laden.'

The decision to move out Singh after completing one year in the hot seat was taken at the meetings held over the last two days to control damage. The government’s assessment was that the police commissioner’s handling of the investigation into the bomb scare near Ambani’s residence, Antilia, and the death of Hiran was 'patchy.'

As the ruling coalition switched into damage-control mode, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar - his intervention had persuaded Thackeray to earlier transfer out Vaze - even justified the Centre’s decision to get the NIA to probe this case.

Officers who misuse their powers must face the music, Pawar told reporters, a stand that appeared to contrast sharply with the earlier stance of the Shiv Sena.