NIA grills Param Bir Singh, Pradeep Sharma in Antilia bomb scare and Hiran murder cases

Singh reached NIA office at 9.30am and was questioned for 4 hours in connection with the Antilia bomb scare case. Meanwhile, Sharma was quizzed for around 7 hours.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which has been probing the Antilia bomb scare and the murder case of Thane businessman Mansukh Hiran, questioned former Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh for four hours on Wednesday. Encounter specialist and former police personnel Pradeep Sharma was also questioned for seven hours at NIA office in south Mumbai.

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Singh reached NIA office around 9.30am. NIA recorded his statement in connection with the Antilia bomb scare case as he was the Mumbai Police commissioner and arrested accused Sachin Vaze, who was then in-charge of the crime intelligence unit (CIU), was allegedly directly reporting to Singh. Soon after the explosive laden-Scorpio vehicle was found near industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s residence, the case was transferred to the CIU and Vaze was made an investigating officer.

Singh has been appointed as the director general of Home Guards after he was shunted out from the post of Mumbai Police commissioner on March 17 after NIA claimed that Vaze was the mastermind behind planting the explosives-laden Scorpio near Antilia and seized an Innova of Mumbai Police which was allegedly trailing the Scorpio on February 25.

Sharma reached NIA office around 12.45pm and left around 8.20pm. During an investigation, NIA found that Sharma had visited the Mumbai Police commissioner’s office on March 2 and had allegedly met Vaze in CIU office and also met Singh. NIA has been questioning him to find out whether he was involved in the meeting and whether he was part of the conversation with Vaze and Mansukh Hiran when Vaze was reportedly asking Hiran to take responsibility of planting explosives in his own Scorpio.

Hiran, who was allegedly not ready to accept the responsibility, went missing on March 4 evening after he left his house to meet an officer named Tawade near Ghodbunder Road in Thane. Later on March 5, Hiran’s body was found near Retibunder in Mumbra.

The probing agency is now conducting an investigation to find out if Vaze was involved in Hiran’s murder and whether he took help of others to execute his plan to frame or eliminate Hiran. Apart from Vaze, former police constable Vinayak Shinde and bookie Naresh Gor are in NIA’s custody for allegedly providing logistic support in Hiran’s murder.

Sharma was a senior inspector of anti-extortion cell in Thane before he resigned from the police department in July 2019 and joined the Shiv Sena. He contested and lost in 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections from Nallasopara constituency against Hitendra Thakur.

Sharma was previously suspended from police department owing to corruption allegations but was reinstated in 2005. He was also named in Ramnarayan Gupta alias Lakhan Bhaiya encounter case and was arrested in 2010, but was acquitted in 2013 by a lower court. He re-joined the Mumbai police force in 2017 and was in-charge of anti-extortion cell (AEC) in Thane when Singh was Thane commissioner.

NIA officers also recorded statement of a deputy commissioner of police of Mumbai Police’s crime branch who visited the criminal intelligence unit (CIU) office on March 3. The agency wanted to verify certain details with all concern people present in the CIU office at the time when Hiran met Vaze. The DCP visited the NIA office on Tuesday afternoon and he was examined for around three hours. He left the NIA office in the evening, said an NIA officer. However, a senior Mumbai Police officer said the DCP had visited the CIU office for some other work and was not part of the conversation between Vaze and Hiran.

As of now, NIA has recorded statements of around 40 people and further investigations are on in both the cases, said an NIA officer.