Vijay Palande starts dropping names

Vijay Palande, arrested in connection with the murders of Oshiwara senior citizen Arun Tikku and lyricist Karan Kakkar, worked as an informer for two encounter specialists.

He told the police that he worked for Daya Nayak and Pradeep Sharma. He even visited their offices in Andheri (W) on a couple of occasions in 2000. 

An officer, who was present at the interrogation, said Palande dropped names of several policemen. While Sharma was dismissed from service for his "connections with the underworld", Nayak was suspended following an investigation by the Anti-Corruption Bureau. He was accused of having assets disproportionate to his known source of income. 

“There is no point dragging us in this case. Palande was known to several policemen. He used to meet several officers casually. That is how we got to know him,” Nayak said.

The officer said Palande got close to several policemen during his stint at the Copper Chimney restaurant in Juhu. "He often tried to keep the police in good humour so that they never raided the restaurant," he said. "Palande also knows a couple of actors.”

Another officer said, "It doesn’t matter if Palande worked as an informer for the police. It has no bearing on the present case.”

Palande has a relative of an inspector’s rank in the police force and he was in the team investigating the Tikku murder. The officer was also present in the police van that had vanished for some time while taking Palande back to the crime branch office from Chiplun.