Look who is up for a promotion

On Wednesday, the office of the Mumbai police commissioner issued an order listing the names of 35 assistant police inspectors slated for promotion to the rank of police inspector. At number 35: Sachin Hindurao Vaze.

On Wednesday, the office of the Mumbai police commissioner issued an order listing the names of 35 assistant police inspectors slated for promotion to the rank of police inspector. At number 35: Sachin Hindurao Vaze.

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The catch? Vaze, an encounter specialist facing murder charges in the custodial death case of Khwaja Yunus, resigned from the police force on November 30, 2007.

He has since joined the Shiv Sena and works for a television channel.

The order, a copy of which is with Hindustan Times, asks various department heads for the Annual Confidential Review (ACR) of all these officers to decide on their promotion. It is on the basis of the ACR that an officer is promoted.

“My resignation letter has been acknowledged by the local arms division at Naigaon where I was last posted,” said Vaze. “I have even donated my provident fund money to the police welfare fund.”

Joint Commissioner of Police (Administration) Bhagwan More said that he did not know “anything about such an order.”

Vaze was suspended on March 3, 2004, after he and three other policemen were charged with murder for the custodial death of Yunus. He resigned three years later after his repeated requests for reinstatement were rejected by the government.

Yunus, a suspect in the December 2, 2002, Ghatkopar bomb blast case, was reported missing on January 7, 2003, after the police claimed he had escaped from the vehicle taking him to Aurangabad for investigation.

Yunus’s family moved the high court, which transferred the case to the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

The CID, after investigating Yunus’s disappearance, concluded it was a case of custodial death and booked Vaze and three other officers for murder and destruction of evidence.

Trial of the case is yet to commence.