Former Mumbai top cop Param Bir Singh arrives at NIA office

In a significant development, former Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh on Wednesday arrived at the NIA office in Mumbai, where his statement would be recorded.

Singh, an officer of the 1988 batch of the IPS is currently the commandant general of Home Guards.

Singh landed at the NIA office hours before the federal agency was set to produce suspended assistant police inspector Sachin Vaze and two other accused – dismissed police constable Vinayak Shinde and Naresh Gor – before a special court for an extension of their remand.

Vaze has been accused of planting a Scorpio with 20-odd gelatin sticks and a threatening letter near Antilia, the residence of Reliance Industries Ltd chairman Mukesh Ambani and the murder of SUV owner Mansukh Hiren.

Also read: CBI lodges preliminary inquiry to probe Anil Deshmukh on corruption allegations

Former home minister Anil Deshmukh's name has been mired in controversy after Param Bir Singh accused him of setting a Rs 100 crore per month collection target for Vaze

Deshmukh also faced the heat for the controversial reinstatement of Vaze in the police force after being out for 16 years in connection with the custodial death of Khwaja Yunus, a suspect in a blast case.

The Bombay High Court has ordered a CBI investigation into the corruption allegations against Deshmukh – and the national probe agency has registered a preliminary inquiry into the case. Meanwhile, Deshmukh and Maharashtra government have moved the Supreme Court challenging the CBI probe.

Vaze was chief of the Criminal Intelligence Unit of the Mumbai Crime Branch. The entire issue has rattled the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra.