Not only Enforcement Directorate, Uddhampur cops too after Anil Jaisinghani

Udhampur in J&K is nearly 2,000 kms from Ulhasnagar near Mumbai where bookie Anil Jaisinghani lives. Yet recent developments following a raid by the Enforcement Directorate and a summons under the Prevention of money laundering Act have led to a connection emerging.

At the heart of this is the post-mortem report and panchanama about the death of one Anil Deshmukh following a head-on collision between a truck and an Innova (JK 02 AC 0808) in which he was travelling on October 17, 2006. Only one small problem. There's no one called Anil Deshmukh. The FIR No 70 of 2006 claims a body was recovered and sent for postmortem. Whose body was it? While Jaisinghani and family who were travelling with another friend in the same car did not respond to repeated phone calls and messages from dna, this writer was able to trace the driver of the vehicle, Ajab Singh, an Uddhampur resident, who admitted that apart from Jaisinghanis, their friend Krishnakant Ladha and Anil Jaisinghani's lawyer Dnyaneshwar Deshmukh there was another passenger. "Anu Pahilajani was Jaisinghani's private security guard," he remembers.

He recounts losing control of his brand new Innova when another vehicle crossed them on a narrow slope off the Dudhar nullah at Rahambal. "Though I swerved, the car fell into a ravine killing Pahilajani on the front seat."

According to him, army men posted on the stretch helped them. "By the time the police arrived, the Jainsinghanis, their friend Ladha and me had been pulled out of the wrecked car. Pahilajani's body lay in the car along with the badly injured lawyer who was barely breathing."

When dna spoke to Kalyan-based advocate Dnyaneshwar Deshmukh, he remembered how Jaisinghani took him to Delhi to help file a petition in the Supreme Court when the Bombay HC ruled he need not be given police protection. "We reached two days before, so Jaisinghani suggested we go to Vaishnodevi for darshan. I agreed."

The journey changed his life. "When our Innova collided with another car, I was dozing. Jaisinghanis, Ladha were unhurt. While his private guard died, I was seriously injured and had passed out." Later in hospital, with a broken left leg, five broken ribs and several spinal and head injuries, he gathered from the conversation between investigating officer SI Mia Anjum and Dnyaneshwar's family that Jaisinghani had palmed off his laptop with incriminating betting details. "He said I was into betting and feigned not to know how to operate the laptop."

In the three years he recovered and petitioned both J&K police and state authorities about his case. "If it was indeed so serious, why'd I been allowed to go?," he asks and adds, "I was sent a letter in 2009 that the inquiry into the laptop and its findings had been wound up. They unilaterally did this without even recording my statement."

According to the detailed FIR in Urdu, it was Jaisinghani who told the police that the deceased was Anil Deshmukh (borrowing the first half from his own name and the second half from the lawyer's who had passed out).

While it's unclear why this was done, there is another anomaly in the papers. The postmortem says Anil Deshmukh died on the spot, but in reply to correspondence by lawyer Dnyaneshwar Deshmukh, the police claim he died two days later in hospital. Udhampur SP Mohammad Suleman Choudhary said on the phone that the police were tracking the Jaisinghani case. "We'll reopen the accident case and find out if any of our own men colluded. They'll also not be spared."

Who was Anil Deshmukh? Why was this particular name given to deceased Anu Pahilajani?
Who deputed one Sunil Adhyaru to get back the laptop?
Why did the Rahambal Police station give Anil Jaisinghani go?
Why didn't the lawyer Dnyaneshwar Deshmukh's statement get recorded
before the inquiry was closed in the matter?
Why haven't Anu Pahilajani's fmaily even filed a missing report to date?