Assistant Police Inspector Sachin Vaze has denied that he was using the Scorpio which was in possession of Mansukh Hiren, a senior Maharashtra Anti- Terrorism Squad (ATS) official said on Thursday.
The ATS, which is probing Hiren's mysterious death, recorded Vaze's statement earlier this week, he said.
Hiren's wife had claimed that her husband had given the SUV to Vaze in November, which the Mumbai crime branch officer returned in the first week of February.
On February 25, the SUV was found near industrialist Mukesh Ambani's house in south Mumbai with explosives and a threat letter inside. Hiren had claimed that it had been stolen a week earlier, but the case got murky when he was found dead in a creek in Thane on March 5.
Vaze, accused by Hiren's wife of involvement in her husband's suspicious death, was shunted out of the Mumbai crime branch on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the investigators have yet to trace the Innova car in which the man who parked the Scorpio near Ambani's house is seen leaving the spot in CCTV footage, another official said.
Published 11 March 2021, 21:14 IST