From investigators to accused: Rise and fall of officers on the police force
PUNE The arrest of Sachin Vaze, a Mumbai police officer, by the National Investigating Agency (NIA), may have shocked some, but is it the first time Maharashtra is witnessing a serving cop getting arrested in a sensational case such as this? Around 18 years ago, Maharashtra’s police department was startled when a battery of police officials – junior and senior– were arrested by a special investigation team probing the multi-crore stamp paper scam, of which Abdul Karim Telgi was mastermind
PUNE The arrest of Sachin Vaze, a Mumbai police officer, by the National Investigating Agency (NIA), may have shocked some, but is it the first time Maharashtra is witnessing a serving cop getting arrested in a sensational case such as this?
Around 18 years ago, Maharashtra’s police department was startled when a battery of police officials – junior and senior– were arrested by a special investigation team probing the multi-crore stamp paper scam, of which Abdul Karim Telgi was mastermind.
With more than 20 convictions, imprisonment to which count up to 40 years if calculated separately, and fines slapped on him crossing ₹250 crore, Telgi died in Bengaluru, after a prolonged illness in October 2017.
From former Mumbai police commissioner RS Sharma and ex-joint commissioner Shreedhar Vagal, to the then deputy commissioner Pradeep Sharma, were arrested in the case that hit headlines in 2003-04, when Maharashtra being ruled by the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
RS Sharma, who first served as Pune police commissioner before taking the charge as top cop in Mumbai, was arrested the day after his retirement, sending shockwaves in police circles.
Later, during the course of the trial, those named above and some others were discharged in the case by the courts. The irony was, many of the police officials arrested in the Telgi case were also involved in probing the same scam. Their arrests also pointed to conspiracy theories about how actions were the fallout of internal rivalries between officers in the state police force.
The case reverberated nationally with names of some politicians also being dragged into it. No senior politician was arrested or booked though.
While Telgi scam was mostly about money, the cases that hurt the Maharashtra police most were some of the alleged fake encounters or custodial killings. Back in 2002, an investigation carried out by the Crime Investigation Department (CID) established that bomb- blast accused Sayyed Khwaja Yunus was killed in custody.
It was similar to the Sachin Vaze case, and other encounter specialists like Praful Bhosale, who arrested later.
Like Vaze, another Mumbai police officer who rose to fame through encounters was Daya Nayak. Nayak too faced allegations of disproportionate income and his alleged links with criminals, and was suspended from the service before being reinstated in 2012.
Closer to Pune, the arrest of BR Andhalkar, a former inspector attached with the rural police in RTI activist Satish Shetty’s murder brought a fresh twist to the case. Those whom CBI has chargesheeted, includes former assistant inspector Namdeo Kauthale and former Andhalkar, even as the agency has filed a closure report against nine others, that include Ideal Road Builder (IRB) chairman and managing director Virendra Mhaiskar, and others, in the absence of evidence.
Shetty, 38, an RTI activist from Pune district was working on exposing alleged irregularities in land dealings pertaining to plots alongside the Mumbai-Pune expressway, when he was stabbed to death on January 13, 2010, not far from his Panchvati Colony home in Talegaon Dabhade, while on his morning walk.
If some of these policemen were held to account for their actions because of a slew of petitions in courts, judicial activism or pressure from opposition, there was no denying the rivalry among policemen.
Most of these policemen were ambitious. Some of them even aligned with politicians and senior police officers for their vested interests. Some of the encounter specialists amassed disproportionate assets, while others parked their ill-gotten wealth in philanthropist activities.
Unfortunately, some were suspended or dismissed and jailed, to allow them join with the same criminals they had once arrested. Many on the other hand managed to clear their names through the judicial process and rejoined duty.