Mujawar did not address letter to me, never tried to meet me: Former DGP

COP CLAIMS MALEGAON BLASTS ACCUSED KILLED

DAYS AFTER Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis ordered a probe into why the ‘complaint’ made by suspended Maharashtra Assistant Police Inspector Mahiboob Mujawar in 2009 wasn’t investigated, SS Virk, the then DGP, said that Mujawar’s letter never reached him. Virk also pointed out that Mujawar never sought an appointment to meet him.

In an affidavit filed before a Solapur Court, Mujawar has claimed that two wanted accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts — Ramchandra Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange — were allegedly killed in Maharashtra Antiterrorism Squad (ATS) custody and their bodies disposed of as victims of the November 2008 terror strike.

“I have learnt from the media that the complaint letter sent by Mujawar was addressed to the DGP’S office. On a daily basis, the DGP’S office receives several letters. As a matter of practice, I used to read every letter addressed to me in person. Mujawar never sent a letter addressing me,” Virk said. “We have a concept called the ‘orderly room’, which is like a grievance-raising forum where lower-rung policemen meet the state DGP to complain on issues they otherwise find difficult to raise. If Mujawar was privy to such sensitive information, he should have had at least sought an appointment and spoken with me,” Virk added.

The former IPS officer further said that he had never met Mujawar or had heard about him during his tenure as the state chief. “The information which he has now revealed is sensitive in nature and if it would have reached me, I would have probed it thoroughly,” Virk said.

Meanwhile, activist Neeraj Gunde, who had written to the Prime Minister’s Office last month on the same issue, tweeted a news clip pertaining to the November 2008 attack that showed a white police jeep, seen coming from the Mahapalika Marg towards Metro cinema in South Mumbai. The activist claimed that this was the jeep in which the bodies of Kalsangra and Dange were ferried after they were killed at the Kalachowkie unit of the ATS. “This can be checked by the NIA, which on Friday told the court it would probe the information revealed by Mujawar,” Gunde said.

However, the anchor in the clip is heard saying that the white jeep was the one in which ATS chief Hemant Karkare, Additional CP Ashok Kamte and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar — had travelled in before they were killed by terrorists.