After Crime Branch, Mumbai top cop may make changes in EOW

Mumbai Days after he ordered the transfer of 84 police officers, most of them who belonged to the elite Crime Branch, Mumbai Police commissioner Hemant Nagrale is likely to initiate a similar ‘clean-up drive’ in the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), people familiar with the developments said

Mumbai Days after he ordered the transfer of 84 police officers, most of them who belonged to the elite Crime Branch, Mumbai Police commissioner Hemant Nagrale is likely to initiate a similar ‘clean-up drive’ in the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), people familiar with the developments said.

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Ever since he took charge as the top cop on March 17, after former top cop Param Bir Singh was shunted out following the row over suspended Mumbai police officer Sachin Waze’s alleged involvement in the bomb scare outside industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s residence, Nagrale has suspended 65 officers who had served in the Crime Branch for over five years.

Officers who have been serving in the EOW for more than four years are likely to be his next target, the people cited above said.

In a recent order to all the unit heads, EOW joint commissioner of police Niket Kaushik had hinted at possible transfers in the coming days. The order, a copy of which was accessed by HT, read: “Possible transfers of those officers who are completing four years in EOW as of May 31, 2021, cannot be ruled out in upcoming general transfers (which occurs every year in June). Hence, all unit heads are hereby directed henceforth not to give such officers the investigation of new cases.”

The EOW deals with cases such as multi-crore banking fraud, corporate frauds, investment frauds, housing frauds by builders among other white-collar crimes.

Generally, a police officer is supposed to serve at a post for a period of three years before his next transfer. “There are officers here (in EOW) who have been in the department for the past six to seven years by merely switching their postings within the EOW during the transfers,” the people cited above said.

“Once these officers are moved out, 45 to 50 per cent of posts of officers in this wing would go vacant. These posts would be filled up by new officers,” an EOW officer said, requesting anonymity.

Speaking on the transfers, a senior IPS officer who did not wish to be named said: “The commissioner’s clean-up drive aims to uproot the nexus or connivance of policemen with wrong elements that ultimately encourage corruption in the police department. It makes them indulge in unethical practices which eventually could lead to another Sachin Vaze-like episode which has brought tremendous embarrassment to Mumbai Police.”