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Antilia explosives scare: Ex-cop Waze wanted to create terror in the mind of Ambanis, says NIA court

Sep 23, 2023 12:57 AM IST

Dismissed police officer Sachin Waze and his co-accused planned to terrorize the Ambani family by parking an explosives-laden SUV outside their residence, according to a special NIA court. The court rejected Waze's bail plea, stating that loose gelatine sticks found in the SUV were sufficient to create terror. Waze is also accused of hiring someone to kill the vehicle owner, Mansukh Hiran. The court deemed it a pre-planned murder and expressed concerns about witness tampering if Waze was released on bail.

MUMBAI: Dismissed police officer Sachin Waze and the co-accused in the case intended to terrorise Ambani family by parking an explosives laden SUV outside the family’s south Mumbai residence, Antilia, the special NIA (National Investigation Agency) court has said while rejecting the dismissed police officer’s bail plea.

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HT Image

By its detailed order, which became available on Friday, the court rejected Waze’s contentions that loose gelatine sticks were found in the SUV and those were not connected to detonators and as such were not sufficient to terrorise anyone.

According to the NIA, Waze, who at the relevant time headed the Criminal Intelligence Unit of Mumbai police crime branch, had planted the explosives laden Scorpio outside Antilia on the night of February 24, 2021.

The body of the car owner Mansukh Hiran was found dumped in a creek near Mumbra on March 5. The agency further claimed that Waze later hired former encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma to bump off Hiran, and accordingly Sharma’s henchmen killed the vehicle owner Mansukh Hiran in the evening of March 4 and dumped his body in the creek.

Seeking bail, Waze had claimed that the charges under stringent sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, were not applicable to the case, as it did not involve any terrorist act. Besides, the material found from the SUV was not any connected explosive device, per say.

The court rejected the contention and observed that, “it is amply clear that though the gelatin sticks were not connected with detonators, it is sufficient to create terror in the minds of people. Here in this case the attempt of the applicant (Waze) was to create terror in the mind of a particular section of people and that is the Ambani Family, and therefore, this contention of the applicant is devoid of merit.”

“From the statement of the witnesses and documents available on the record, it is seen that applicant and other co-accused tried to spread terror in the mind of Ambani family and when Mansukh refused to accept the (responsibility for the) crime, the applicants (Waze) and other co-accused eliminated Mansukh by conspiring with each other,” said the court.

The court termed it as a pre-planned murder. “Every precaution was taken from escaping the clutches of the law. It is not a simple allegation under the section of the Indian Penal Code. In such a situation, if the applicant is released on bail, then there is every possibility of tampering with the witnesses,” the court said while rejecting Waze’s plea for bail.

Besides, Waze had also claimed that he was falsely implicated in the case due to police rivalry and also claimed that there is no evidence to show that he was the one who planted the explosive laden car outside Antilia. It was also contended that NIA had not taken sanction to prosecute him.

The court refused to accept his contentions and observed that taking somebody’s SUV and planting gelatine sticks and a threatening note in it and leaving the vehicle near a billionaire industrialist’s house is certainly “not part of duty of the applicant” and Waze did not say anything in his bail plea, if this was part of his duty – to require sanction to prosecute him.

“The bail application of the applicant was silent as to with whom he had rivalry in the police department and how he has been implicated in the false case,” the court added.

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