The revelations made by Rakesh Maria have drawn in quite a bit of controversy.
Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria has, in his book titled 'Let Me Say It Now' revealed startling insider information about several cases during his career, which raises key questions about the systemic issues. Among the incidents brought to light were the sensational Sheena Bora murder case and the 2008 Mumbai attacks (aka the "26/11" terrorist attack), both cases in which Maria was involved with the investigation.
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Sheena Bora murder case
The Sheena Bora murder case came to the news in 2015 when media barons Peter Mukerjea and Indrani Mukerjea were arrested for the alleged abduction and murder of Indrani's daughter, Sheena Bora. Rakesh Maria, the then police commissioner of Mumbai, was in charge of investigating the case. In his book, Maria has made some shocking claims in which he alleges that given the Mukerjea couple's influence, there were systemic pressures to prevent the proper investigation of the case. In a sensational revelation, the former police commissioner blamed Deven Bharti, the then Joint Commissioner (Law and Order) of misleading him in the investigation due to Bharti's links with the Mukerjea family.
Further, Rakesh Maria said that it is for this reason that he was suddenly promoted and transferred as Director-General (DG) of Home Guards dramatically in the middle of the investigation by Additional Chief Secretary (Home) KP Bakshi. Ahmed Javed was brought in as the new Mumbai Police Commissioner as Maria's successor shortly after his transfer so that the investigation can be effectively suppressed, Rakesh Maria claimed.
The ex-Mumbai top cop also alleged that given the Mukerjeas' influence on the media, the news agencies then had tried to paint Rakesh Maria as an incapable police officer and had ignored Deven Bharti's links with the Mukerjea couple. Maria said that he had his first suspicion when Peter Mukerjea had, on one instance, referred to Deven Bharti as "Deven", hinting at a degree of closeness between the two.
2008 Mumbai attacks
Another high-profile case that former Mumbai Police commissioner Rakesh Maria was involved in was the 2008 Mumbai attack (aka the "26/11" terrorist attacks).
In November 2008, 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terrorist organisation, carried out 12 coordinated shooting and a series of bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. At least 174 people died, including 9 attackers, and more than 300 were wounded. The attack drew widespread global condemnation and is regarded as one of the worst terrorist attacks against India.
In his book 'Let Me Say It Now', Rakesh Maria has unmasked the conspiracy of Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to project the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack as an act of "Hindu terrorism". Instead, the former top cop has written about the plan of the ISI and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
Maria wrote that Ajmal Kasab had tied a red thread (significant in Hinduism) on his wrist as part of the ISI conspiracy and a fake identity card, with his name as Sameer Dinesh Chaudhary, was also recovered from him. As per the ID card, he was said to have been a student of a college in Hyderabad and a fake Bangalore address was also given.
The former cop added that had Kasab been not caught alive it would never be revealed that he was not a Hindu but actually belonged to Faridkot in Pakistan. The police officers would have conducted their investigations in Hyderabad and Bangalore on the basis of the ID card. The media too would have been searching for his friends and the ISI would have succeeded in their conspiracy by spreading the theory of Hindu terrorism.
In his book, Maria claimed that after Kasab was caught, ISI and LeT were trying every possible way to eliminate Kasab as he was the biggest and only evidence of the Mumbai attack. For this, the ISI had also given a contract to Dawood Ibrahim's gang to kill Kasab, added Maria.
Maria wrote in the book, "After training for three rounds for the LeT, Kasab received an amount of Rs 1.25 lakh and was also given a holiday package for a week. He gave this money to his sister for her wedding."
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The revelations made by Rakesh Maria have drawn in quite a bit of controversy. Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Tuesday said, "We'll gather info about what Rakesh Maria has written in his book. We'll speak to him and try to know about the incident that took place during Devendra Fadnavis' rule and the allegations which are against him. We'll order probe if the need arises."
The BJP, on the other hand, attempted to score one against Congress.
BJP's Ram Madhav said, "A huge revelation has come out through the book. Conspiracy by Pakistan's ISI couldn't succeed, as revealed in it, but attempts to make it successful by some Congress leaders and others were being made at that time. Some intellectuals had attempted to link the Mumbai terror attack to RSS, they had the support of Congress leaders. Today it is revealed that it was a conspiracy by ISI, and some so-called intellectuals were trying to take this forward."
In his thirty-six long years in the Indian Police Service, Rakesh Maria is credited with having built and led several Mumbai police teams which solved some of the most high-profile cases -- the Mumbai serial blasts of 1993, the Indian Mujahideen module in 2008, the 26/11 terrorist attack on Mumbai, and the sensational Sheena Bora murder case which was brought to light when he was the Commissioner of Police.
"Let Me Say It Now" was published by Westland Books on February 17, 2020, and is available in bookstores under the 'Biographies and Autobiographies" section.
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 "Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria was invovled with the investigation of a number of high-profile cases")
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