A query under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has again exposed the inept and casual manner in which the Mumbai police handles even cases related to the underworld.
A query under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has again exposed the inept and casual manner in which the Mumbai police handles even cases related to the underworld.
Personnel at the Dindoshi police station reportedly misplaced an entire bundle of important papers relating to a case in which gangster Hemant Pujari and his associate, a Vinodbhai, were the accused. Even Chhota Rajan’s name figured in the case.
Malad resident Mohan Krishnan, who heads the NGO, National Anti-Corruption and Crime Preventive Council, recently filed the RTI query, seeking the status of a criminal case registered by the police station on September 6, 2000, against Pujari and Vinodbhai.
The case (CR 383/2000) booked Pujari and his associate for holding out death threats to Krishnan. The threats were allegedly issued on behalf of Rajan. Krishnan also asked for a copy of the charge sheet or summary filed in the case.
Personnel at the Dindoshi police station developed cold feet on receiving the query. The file, containing all the documents and papers related to the case, was missing. Despite searching the cupboards and rummaging through the drawers, they could not trace it. The officers currently posted at the police station did not even know about the existence of any such file.
On going through the records, it was revealed that no charge sheet or summary had been filed in the case. This meant the case was still open.
To avoid public embarrassment, the police summoned Laxman Bhosale, a 60-year-old retired sub-inspector who was investigating the case in 2000. When Bhosale, who now lives with his family at Apshinge village in Satara, arrived at the police station on September 6, he made a shocking revelation. Bhosale had taken the file with him after his transfer from the police station in 2002. “I accidentally took it with me,” the former policeman said.
Between 2002 and 2003, Bhosale worked as a head constable with the modus operandi wing at the police headquarters near Crawford Market. He later moved to the Vasai railway police station, where he retired as sub-inspector last year.
Bhosale admitted that no one from the Dindoshi police station had inquired about the file till the RTI query was filed. The file travelled from one police station to another with him, finally resting at Bhosale’s Satara residence. No one had touched it in seven years.
The file is now back in the possession of the Dindoshi police. In response to Krishnan’s RTI, the police have now sent him a letter stating that they intend to file a summary to the court in the matter. He has been asked to remain present at the 24th metropolitan magistrate’s court in Borivli on September 15. But has the action come too late? Calling it gross negligence, Krishnan has demanded a high-level inquiry into the matter.
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