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Maharashtra
By Arunkumar Bhatt
An IPS officer of the 1976 batch, Mr. Vagul has been arrested under Section 24 of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) for being an accomplice to the crime syndicate of Abdul Telgi. He will be taken to Pune and produced before the MCOCA court there. The arrest came after two days of grilling by the SIT chief, S.S. Puri, who was not satisfied with Mr. Vagul's answers to a questionnaire sent to him earlier. Mr. Puri summoned him to the SIT office and informed him that he was under arrest. Police circles apprehend that arrest of the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime), Pradeep Sawant, who was shunted out to the Special Branch only on Thursday, is not far behind. Mr. Vagul was the Joint Commissioner (Crime) in Mumbai last January when a team of the Karnataka police, led by the Additional Director- General, T. Sreekumar, found Abdul Telgi at his flat in a posh locality here when he was supposed to be in the custody of the Crime Branch. While this brought Mr. Vagul and Mr. Sawant under a cloud, police arrested the Assistant Police Inspector, Dilip Kamath, who is now a MCOCA undertrial in the case. Four other police officers are also in custody for "being hand in glove with Telgi". They are the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Gokul Patil, and the Sub-Inspector, Pratap Kakade, who had allegedly helped Telgi in running the racket while they were posted in Thane district; Inspector Vasudev Andale of the Sahar Airport Police who had allowed Telgi's fake stamp consignments to pass, and even released his key associates; Inspector Dattatreya Dhal of Dharavi Unit to whom the seniors had passed the Telgi case with a "view to letting him off the hook". The SIT's next step could be intense questioning of the present Police Commissioner of Mumbai, R.S. Sharma, since the High Court has already directed it to probe the role played by him in the investigation of the fake stamp case.
The Deputy Inspector-General, Subodh Jaiswal, had found several lapses on the part of Mr. Sharma and the ACP, A.C. Mulani. The Director-General of Police, Subhash Malhotra, had asked Mr. Jaiswal to probe the investigation after Pune's Additional Police Commissioner, S.M. Mushrif, had made serious allegations against Mr. Sharma.
Initially, Mr. Mushrif was in charge of the investigation but Mr. Sharma had removed him.
The High Court has asked Mr. Puri to submit his report on November 12 next. Mr. Puri, former Director-General of police, Anti-Corruption Bureau, was called upon by the court to head the SIT. He was accorded the powers of the DGP since investigation by a retired officer would not be valid as per the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Other members of the SIT are the Additional Commissioner of Mumbai Police, Sanjay Barve, who heads the Economic Offences Wing, the State Reserve Police Commandant, Ritesh Kumar, and the Superintendent of Police (Intelligence), Hemant Nagrale.
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