Demand for Sachin Vaze’s arrest stalls Assembly

Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said the case will be diligently probed by the ATS

The Legislative Assembly witnessed prolonged ruckus on Tuesday over the demand for the arrest and suspension of Assistant Police Inspector Sachin Vaze in the mysterious death of Thane resident Mansukh Hiran. Opposition leader Devendra Fadnavis raised the demand quoting from the statement that Hiran's wife has given to the police.

Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) would bring the guilty to book. He asked for more evidence from the Opposition. But, Fadnavis said he had given enough material to nail the suspect, yet Deshmukh was protecting him raising serious doubts.

The Opposition kept pressing for action against Vaze, even as the Shiv Sena and other Maha Vikas Aghadi members tried to turn the tables on the BJP, demanding action in the death of Dadra Nagar Haveli MP Mohan Delkar, who has named certain people for abetting his suicide in Mumbai, and other cases that happened under BJP rule.

The chaos led to the House being stalled for the day, following several adjournments, delaying the debate on the state budget that Finance Minister Ajit Pawar had presented on Monday. During the adjournments, all party meetings were held, and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Deputy CM Ajit Pawar and Anil Deshmukh deliberated the issue for countering the Opposition.

Fadnavis alleged that the government was protecting Vaze because he was affiliated to a certain party. He named Dhananjay Gawade, a political worker associated with one of the MVA partners, as Vaze's accomplice. He said the two had faced an extortion case in which they had applied for anticipatory bail in 2017. He demanded Vaze's arrest under section 201 (disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code, if not under section 302 (murder).

"Hiran was killed in the vehicle and his body thrown 40km from his last mobile location. Hiran's wife has named Vaze as a prime suspect," said Fadnavis reading out from the statement of Thane man's wife. Fadnavis also demanded that Vaze be removed as head of a crime branch unit fearing moves to destroy evidence. Deshmukh turned down the demand saying Vaze was not working with the branch (ATS) that was probing the charges.

Shiv Sena leader and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Anil Parab made a similar demand in the abetment of Delkar's suicide. "All people named in Delkar's suicide note must be arrested by the (Mumbai) police," he demanded.

Deshmukh announced that the MP's suicide would be probed by a Special Investigation Team. "Delkar's wife and son have written to me asking for an inquiry," he said, adding that the administrator named in the suicide note had worked as home minister in Gujarat's BJP government. He said Delkar and an Indian Police Service officer from Madhya Pradesh chose to end their lives in Maharashtra because they believed the Maharashtra government and local police could deliver justice to their families.

‘Is state suicide destination?'
Fadnavis dismissed the allegations as baseless and wondered if the government was promoting Maharashtra as a suicide destination. "If it is so, then, why haven't you succeeded in nailing the culprit in the suicide of Puja Chavan?" he asked.

Congress's Nana Patole demanded to know how Fadnavis could procure CDR (call records). To this, Fadnavis said the state could start an inquiry against him in this regard, and he would procure even more evidence if the case was not cracked as demanded.

The debate turned volatile further when Sena's Bhaskar Jadhav alleged that Fadnavis wanted Vaze arrested and removed from the current position because he did not want the officer to probe the Anvay Naik suicide case in which the ‘BJP's favourite' news anchor Arnab Goswami is an accused. "Fadnavis buried the case when he was the CM. He fears action after our government reopened the case," he said. The home minister also made a similar statement, telling the House that he wanted to probe Fadnavis's role in the Naik case. Fadnavis challenged Deshmukh for initiating action against him, saying, "Such threats don't scare me."