VAZE’S WEB

The suspended assistant police inspector is at the centre of all that is dubious in Bombgate

Fake ID

The NIA suspects Vaze stayed at the 5-star Trident Hotel in south Mumbai between January and February using a fake Aadhaar card in the name of Sushant Khamkar. The bag scanner at the hotel showed huge cash in his hand bag.

Missing evidence

Vaze stands accused of trying to destroy the video data record (VDR), the CCTV footage from cameras installed outside his office. The VDR reportedly contains his movements in the six cars he allegedly used to roam in the city. The NIA found two CPUs, one hard disk, one laptop and two fake number plates from Mithi river. It suspects Vaze tried to destroy data in these devices and threw them in the river near Bandra-Kurla Complex.

Attempt to mislead

Vaze conducted a raid on one Tipsy bar in Dongri between 11.45 pm and 1.30 am on the intervening night of March 4-5. He did not seize any papers or register any case. The NIA believes he was cooking an alibi for himself to establish his location in south Mumbai whereas he was present in Thane, 40 km away, two hours before the raid. He also left his mobile phone behind in his Crawford Market office on March 4 evening and walked towards General Post Office, 3 km away, so that his mobile location could not be traced. Interestingly, a CCTV camera on the road caught him walking at the time.

The Hiran murder

When Hiran received a WhatsApp call on March 4 evening, he told wife Vimal he was going to meet a cop named Tawade on Ghodbunder Road. He also told her his ‘police friend’ would be there, who, the NIA suspects, was Vaze himself. The agency believes Hiran was killed around 10 pm and his body thrown in the Thane creek later in Vaze’s presence. The next day, Vaze visited the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital at Kalva where the post-mortem on Hiran’s body was conducted. He spoke to the doctors before they began the post-mortem.

Derailing probe

On March 6, a day after Hiran’s murder, Vaze claimed, the businessman had, fed up of “harassment from police and media”, committed suicide. Vaze claimed Hiran had written the CM a letter to the effect. There was no such letter.