The detainees have been identified as Vinayak shinde (55), an agent convicted of the fake encounter of Chhota Rajan’s partner, Ram Lakhan Bhaiya, in 2007, and Naresh Ramniklal Gore (31), a bookmaker. Shinde, on probation since May 2020, worked with Sachin Waze in a team led by a retired encounters specialist. Pradeep sharma. ATS suspects that more police officers are involved in the killing sparked by Mansukh’s reluctance to take responsibility for planting the explosives. Waze is alleged to have ordered the attack, but may not have been present when Mansukh was killed. The digital trail left by Waze and others when communicating with Mansukh and each other helped ATS to catch the suspects.
Gore and Shinde were brought before the Thane ATS court, which kept them in police custody until March 30. ATS chief Jaijeet Singh said that bookmaker Gore had acquired five SIM cards and handed them over to Shinde, who had been in contact with Waze since his parole.
These arrests are just the tip of the iceberg, an official said, adding that more suspects, mostly police officers, will be detained within a day or two. The two defendants not only admitted their role, but also spoke with Waze and a few other police officers who extended logistical support, the official said.
Waze had asked Mansukh to take responsibility for planting the explosives, but he refused, authorities said. There are two theories about Waze’s reasons for making a case of terror. “Waze would solve the case and become a super cop. Or he and some other policemen, including a senior officer, were hoping to join a private security company that was starting a business, ”said one official.
Preliminary investigations suggest that Waze removed Mansukh because it feared the latter would succumb to pressure and reveal the plan. The plot to kill Mansukh was hatched on March 2 during a two-hour meeting Waze held with two colleagues at its headquarters near Crawford Market. It was the same day that Waze asked Mansukh to draft a letter through an advocate claiming that he was under pressure from the police and the media, which was not the case.
Waze’s phone records have established his location near the Ambani residence on the fateful night, an official said. To build an alibi, he made sure he did not receive or make any calls from his personal phone on March 4, the day of the murder, the ATS told Thane’s court. In fact, there were only 8 messages on his mobile even though it was not turned off. All communication with accomplices was done through SIM cards purchased in Gujarat. To strengthen its defense, Waze stayed in Dongri conducting hotel searches until late at night on March 4.
The effort to erase the evidence, in fact, began much earlier. One day after the car was found near Ambani’s home, four men from the Waze team visited Mansukh’s Thane store and took the digital video recorder linked to his CCTV and installed a new one in its place.
Sources said that while Waze himself was not involved in Mansukh’s murder, he was coordinating with the killers and some police officers by phone. The accused police officers and some people from Thane, who have not yet been arrested, are alleged to have provided logistical support to lure Mansukh to Ghodbunder Road in Thane before attacking him in a moving car and then dumping his body in a stream of Mumbra. The prima facie diatom report has indicated that Mansukh was alive when he was thrown into the creek.
“The killers wanted to prove that Mansukh committed suicide but things got out of control, they left fingerprints like the phone call he received at 8:20 pm on March 4, which prompted him to leave the house. It is suspected that he was attacked in a moving car and his body thrown into the Mumbra stream, ”said a source.
On Saturday, the government announced the transfer of the case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The state ATS has not yet received the order. It may arrive at ATS on Monday, at which point it is likely to announce another advance in the investigations. The team led by Jaijeet Singh, Additional Commissioner Shivdeep Lande, Deputy Commissioner Rajkumar Shinde, ACP Shripad Kale, Senior Inspector Daya nayak and Dhole have been investigating the case for the past week.
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