Cops seek handcuffs for Palande, fearing he’ll flee
MUMBAI: The Unit-9 of the Mumbai police crime branch has requested the sessions court to allow them to bring Vijay Palande and his accomplice Jagdish Shejav aka Dhananjay Shinde before the court in hand-cuffs.
The plea stated that Palande and Shinde are facing trials before court no. 17 in the sessions court and since the court and the corridors are always crowded, they may take advantage of the situation and flee.
Palande and his two associates—dhananjay Shinde and Manoj Gajkosh—were arrested in April 2012 for murdering two persons–delhi businessman Arun Tikku and film producer Karan Kakkad.
The crime branch also urged the court to issue necessary warrants to take the duo back to jail immediately after the hearing is over to cut short their waiting period inside or outside the court.
The court has posted the plea for hearing in the last week of December.
In its plea, the crime branch has mentioned Palande’s previous record that he had in 2003 jumped parole after he was convicted for murdering one Anup Das and his father Swaraj Ranjan, while working at a Juhu restaurant in 1998 and dumping their bodies in Kumbharli Ghat which connects coastal Ratnagiri with Satara in Western Maharashtra. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002. He came out of Kolhapur jail on a two months parole, but did not return, said a police officer.
Later in 2006, he was arrested from an Andheri apartment for allegedly holding a passport on a fictitious name,
Kiran Kanubhai Rana. He was sent back to Kolhapur jail, but released on bail after his lawyer argued that he had spent nine years in jail.
When Palande’s two associates—shinde and Gajkosh— were arrested for chopping Tikku’s body in his Oshiwara flat, the police had detained Palande for questioning. Palande was taken to the unit office in Andheri, but he managed to flee from the compound after getting down from the police vehicle. The police had launched a manhunt and later he was arrested for masterminding the murder of Tikku and Kakkad.
Meanwhile, advocate Prashant Pandey, who represents Palande, said, “Even in 2022, we have to argue for basic rights. After 10 years of custody with trial going at a snail’s pace and all attempts failing to break Vijay’s confidence, a new methodology is adopted by a celebrity prosecutor, who till today could not get anyone as an approver. This is really ridiculous.”
“No one should be tried before a court of law handcuffed, unless he has done any illegal act against the country...and this act is against a person,” Pandey added.
PALANDE AND HIS TWO AIDES WERE ARRESTED IN APRIL 2012 FOR KILLING TWO PERSONS