Antilia explosives scare: NIA court rejects Sachin Waze’s bail plea

Dismissed police officer Sachin Waze's bail plea has been rejected by a special NIA court. Waze is accused of planting an explosive-laden SUV outside Mukesh Ambani's residence and killing the vehicle owner. NIA claims Waze tried to persuade the owner to take the blame and paid someone to have him killed. Waze denies the charges and claims the act was not an act of terror.

MUMBAI: A special NIA (National Investigation Agency) court on Saturday rejected the bail plea of dismissed police officer Sachin Waze, arrested for allegedly parking an explosive-laden SUV outside billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s residence, Antilia, and killing the vehicle owner Mansukh Hiran, a Thane trader.

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On February 25, 2021, a Mahindra Scorpio was found abandoned outside Antilia with 20 loose gelatin sticks kept in a backpack and a note threatening the members of the Ambani family. The body of the vehicle owner, Hiran, was found in the creek near Mumbra on March 5.

NIA claimed that dismissed Mumbai police officer Waze, who at the relevant time headed the Criminal Intelligence Unit of the Mumbai police crime branch, had planted the explosives-laden vehicle on Carmichael Road.

The federal agency claimed that initially, it was Waze who investigated the case. But, later when the probe was transferred to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), Waze and some others tried to persuade Hiran, whom he had known long before the incident, to take the blame for planting the explosive-laden vehicle outside Antilia and assured him that he would come out on bail soon. They, however, decided to kill him after he refused to take the blame, the NIA said.

Waze allegedly paid a huge amount of money to former encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma to get Hiran killed, NIA claimed, adding that accordingly, Sharma hired four people, who smothered the Thane resident to death in a four-wheeler on Ghodbunder Road and dumped the body in the creek.

However, in his plea for bail filed on April 11, Waze had claimed that he had highest regards for Mukesh Ambani and his family, and he was involved in the alleged act of threatening the family. “As a police officer the applicant is fully aware that Shri Mukesh Ambani and his family is the most strongly guarded private family of India, thus threatening them that too with certain ‘unexplodable’ low quality explosives coupled with irrelevant anonymous note is one of the silliest things one could never do. Thus, under no circumstances the Applicant could even think of committing such a silly crime,” Waze had claimed in his bail plea.

Waze had further claimed that the charges of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, were not applicable to the case as the said act in no circumstances was an act of terror. Besides, the material found from the car were not explosives per say.