Sachin Waze case: Did Mumbai police delay ATS probe?

The Maharashtra ATS that initially probed the Antilia bomb scare case gave four letters to the Mumbai police commissionerrsquos office seeking CCTV footage of premises but did not receive any response sources have told middayIn its letters the AntiTerrorism Squad asked the police chiefrsquos office to preserve the footage of the entry and exit gates of 45 days before and after the February 25 Antilia episode IPS officer Parambir Singh was the cityrsquos police commissioner at the time Sources have also told this newspaper the explosivesladen Scorpio that was found near Mukesh Ambanirsquos home was at the police commissionerrsquos office between February 1921A photo of the Innova secretly clicked inside the compound of the police chiefrsquos officeThane businessman Mansukh Hiran who was later found dead in a creek in Mumbra had filed a complaint with the Vikhroli police alleging that his Scorpio which he had parked on a road after it developed a snag on February 17 had gone missingldquoThe Scorpio was taken to Wazersquos residence in Thane and it was parked there till February 19 The same vehicle was taken to the police commissionerrsquos office and was parked there till February 21 It was then taken to Wazersquos Thane residence The Scorpio was finally driven towards Antilia on February 24 and was being tailed by an Innovardquo said an ATS officerThe National Investigation Agency which later took over the probe believes a close aide of Waze was at the wheel of the Scorpio while Waze was inside the Innova which was being driven by a Mumbai Crime Branch officerIt was Waze who was first asked to probe the case before it was transferred to Crime Branch ACP Nitin Alaknure The government tasked the ATS with the investigation following allegations by Opposition leader Devendra Fadnavis It was finally passed on to the NIA on March 8Few CCTVs at CPrsquos officeSources said the ATS learnt that the entire campus of the police chiefrsquos office had no CCTV working cameras apart from the entry and exit gates There were two camera premises but they were not working for a long timeSince the ATS did not have footage to corroborate the suspicion that the Innova belonged to the Crime Intelligence Unit headed by Waze it launched a secret operation and sent its men to click the pictures of all Innovas parked there ATS officers then began tailing Waze and his team to keep a tab on them but Waze claimed that two unknown vehicles were following them with fake number plates which later turned out to be Juhu ATSrsquos vehiclesBy the team the ATS got a confirmation that Innova indeed belonged to Wazersquos team the case was already transferred to the NIA The ATS was then probing Hiranrsquos murder and had questioned Waze on March 7 after recording the statement of the victimrsquos wife Vimla HiranCongress spokesperson Sachin Sawant recently said he had information that the digital video recorder DVR of Mumbai police commissionerrsquos was missing ldquoThis is something very serious the Mumbai police should respond to thatrdquo Sawant told midday Sawantrsquos comments prompted Police Commissioner Hemant Nagrale to call for a meeting of senior officers where they apparently discussed launching an internal probe Calls and messages to Nagrale for an update on the internal probe remained unansweredNIA seizes another vehicleNIA officers said they are collecting CCTV footage including that from the police chiefrsquos office ldquoAs of now we donrsquot have any information that DVRs are missing from the commissioner officerdquo said an NIA officerMeanwhile the agency has seized a Mitsubishi Outlander found near Shitaldhara Housing Society Sector 7 Kamothe The car is registered in the name of Sachin Waze The building guard said the car was earlier parked inside the society for a few days but was taken outside two weeks ago It was used by an CIU officer who is believed to have purchased it from Waze The NIA is probing if this car was used to kill Mansukh Hiran So far the agency has seized 6 cars including a Mercedes and a Parado It is looking for an Audi and a SkodaRtd HC judge to probe Deshmukh chargesThe state government has appointed retired HC Justice Kailash Chandiwal to probe the corruption allegations Mumbairsquos former police chief levelled against state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh The oneman panel has been given six months to file its reportThe notification came a day before the hearing of exCP Param Bir Singhrsquos petition in the HC on Wednesday seeking a CBI inquiry into his allegations Earlier this month Singh wrote an eightpage letter to the CM and the governor accusing Deshmukh of several malpractices He claimed that Deshmukh had made a plan to extract R100 crore per month from city hotels bars and restaurants by pressing the then assistant police inspector Sachin Waze into service Deshmukh had requested the CM to initiate an inquiry against him7 MarchWhen ATS questioned Waze