MUMBAI: A day after NCP chief Sharad Pawar said former Mumbai Police commissioner Parambir Singh’s allegations of extortion against state home minister Anil Deshmukh were serious, he sought to question the timeline mentioned in Singh’s recent ‘letter bomb’ while stoutly defending his minister.
While Singh letter says the now arrested assistant inspector Sachin Waze was called by Deshmukh to his official residence “in and around mid-February and thereafter” to instruct him on extorting Rs 100 crore per month, Pawar argued it was incorrect as the minister was hospitalised from February 5 to 15 after testing positive for Covid-19.
“After discharge, Deshmukh was in home quarantine for the next 10 days in Nagpur. There is no way Waze could have met him in Mumbai then,” Pawar said. Though the Opposition sought to puncture the argument, claiming Deshmukh had addressed the press on February 15, the latter quickly clarified that he had just returned home from hospital and taken a few quick questions that day.
Pawar said the focus should be actually be on the bomb scare at Antilia. The ATS on Sunday had claimed to have made a big breakthrough in Thane-based businessman Mansukh Hiren’s murder with the arrest of two persons, including a former policeman. The ATS on Monday arrested a Gujarat man for providing 14 SIM cards to the two accused. Parambir Singh moved the Supreme Court on Monday, seeking a CBI probe into “malpractices” of Deshmukh and challenged his transfer order by the state government.