New Delhi: Sachin Vaze, Assisstant Inspector of Police has been removed from the Crime Branch after his name came up in the death of Mansukh Hiren’s wife. In the Ambani house bomb scare, Mansukh Hiren’s car was found abandoned outside Antilia, following which he was under intense scrutiny of the probe agencies. Intially, reports of his sucide surfaced but now his wife has claimed that Sachin Vaze was behind his death.
Sachin Vaze’s chequered past
This is not the first time Vaze’s name has been linked with a controversy, he’s always around them. For his case one can say, “Hum jagah khade hote hain, controversies wahin se shuru hoti hain”
Career and Controversies
Vaze is 49-year-old, who hails from Kolhapur. He joined the Maharashtra Police Service in 1990 as a sub-inspector. His first posting was in the Naxalite-infested Gadchiroli district and after that in Thane City Police.
After his induction in Mumbai Police, he became one of the “encounter specialists” and eliminated numerous gangsters including those belonging to the gangs of Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan. He has reportedly eliminated over 60 gangsters in various encounters.
Then, on March 3, 2004, Vaze was suspended along with 14 other policemen on murder charges for the alleged custodial death of Khawaja Yunus. Yunus was a suspect in the December 2, 2002, Ghatkopar bomb blast case. A 1,000-page charge sheet was filed in 2008 which named Vaze and others.
His requests for reinstatement were rejected by the Maharashtra Government which led to his resign from the police on November 30, 2007.
Vaze, the tech-savvy cop who used gadgets to crack cases
Vaze joined the Shiv Sena in 2008 in the presence of late party chief Balasaheb Thackeray. He appeared on some news channels as the party spokesperson but he was not very active in politics.
Vaze is known as “techno-savvy” by his colleagues as he has used the best of gadgets and gizmos to solve cases. He has also solved several cyber crime cases, financial frauds including one international credit card fraud case.
Sachin Vaze was also once posted in the Anti Extortion Cell. In 2017, Local Crime Branch (LCB) of the Vasai police accused Vaze in an alleged extortion racket which was being investigated by it.
Anil Yadav, a government doctor and Right To Information (RTI) activist was arrested by police in several cases of extorting money and threatening builders in the Vasai-Virar region. Yadav named Vaze as an accomplice in his statement. Yadav had told police that Vaze was a key part of his extortion racket.
“We have substantial evidence against Sachin Vaze’s involvement in the extortion racket, and so we have named him as a wanted accused in the case. Yadav’s victims, against whom he filed Right to Information queries and later extorted lakhs of rupees from them, have also come forward,” a senior LCB officer had said at the time.
He was reinstated in Mumbai Police on June 6, 2020 by the Maharashtra government during the COVID-19 pandemic. On his reinstatement, Khawaja Yunus’s mother Asiya Begum filed contempt pleas in the Bombay High Court against Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh and Additional Director General of Police Amitabh Gupta. Gupta was the Principal Secretary of the Home department at that time and currently he is the chief of Pune police.
Vaze’s return in spotlight over Arnab’s arrest
Sachin Vaze returned to spotlight again when he took charge of Anvay Naik suicide case and arrested seasoned journalist Arnab Goswami. He and his team of policemen allegedly assaulted Arnab and his family while arresting him.
Republic TV, headed by Arnab Goswami, ran series of programs to expose the Encounter Specialist and Mumbai Police excesses and brute abuse of power in raiding the house of a journalist in morning and holding him by collar.
When Arnab confronted Vaze & his team over abuse of state power, the encounter specialist was heard saying, “You don’t know what I am capable of.”
Vaze was also in limelight for probing other high-profile cases like TRP rigging scam, the Anvay Naik suicide case, Dilip Chhabria’s alleged sports car scam and the Bollywood-TV-entertainment industry’s casting couch racket.
