The National Investigation Agency seized two more luxury cars in the Antilia bomb scare case, which are suspected to be linked to API Sachin Vaze. This has raised the number of vehicles seized in the case to 5, and reportedly NIA is looking to two more luxury cars.
Today NIA brought two more luxury SUVs to its office in Mumbai in connection with the case. One of the cars is a black luxury SUV, a Mercedes Benz ML 250 CDI. After that, the agency brought another high-end SUV, a white Toyota Land Cruiser Prado GRJ 120 R.
The Mercedes car with registration number MH43AR8697 is registered in Vashi RTO in Navi Mumbai in the name of Narmada Offshore Construction Pvt Ltd. While the Prado with registration number MH02CC101 is registered in Borivali in Mumbai, and its owner as per official records is Vijaykumar Ganpat Bhosle. It is not known how these cars are related to the case, and whether Sachin Vaze has any link with the owners of the cars.
Vijaykumar Ganpat Bhosle is a Shiv Sena leader, and in his affidavit for 2014 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election, he had listed the Toyota Prado SUV with the same number under the list of motor vehicles owned by him. He had quoted the current price of the vehicle at that time at Rs 38 lakh.
It may be noted that after suspension from service in a custodial death case, Sachin Vaze had joined Shiv Sena, and thus he has deep ties with the party. During the Devendra Fadnavis govt, Shiv Sena had put pressure on the govt to reinstate Vaze, but CM Fadnavis had declined it. After Shiv Sena formed the govt with the support of Congress and NCP, they reinstated Sachin Vaze despite being suspended on a court order, and soon he was handling several high profile cases.
According automobile websites, the price of the Mercedes is around Rs 55 lakh, while the Land Cruiser Prado costs almost 1 crore.
With these, NIA has seized 5 cars in the cars, which now includes two Mercedes SUVs and one Land Cruiser Prado. The first car to be seized was the Scorpio car which was found parked near the residence of Mukesh Ambani filled with gelatine sticks. It was owned by Mansukh Hiren, but was being used by Mumbai Police cop Sachin Vaze for several months, before it was returned to Hiren just days before it was found with the explosives. Soon after the discovery of the car with the explosives, Mansukh Hiren was found dead, and his wife has alleged that Sachin Vaze is behind the murder.
The second car to be seized was an Innova, which was seen in CCTV footages trailing the Scorpio before it was parked near Antilia. Although Mumbai police ‘looking’ for the car for days before the case was transferred to NIA, the NIA had found it parked in the office of the Mumbai Police commissioner.
The third car was another Mercedes SUV, which was used by Sachin Vaze. NIA found incriminating evidence in the vehicle, including the number plate of the Scorpio car, more than Rs 5 lakh in cash and a currency counting machine. Reportedly, Sachin Vaze had used the Mercedes car for his personal use with a fake number plate. This Mercedes car also costs around Rs 55 lakh.
Apart from these, NIA is reportedly looking for two more cars linked to the case, one blue Mercedes car and a Skoda car. Sachin Vaze arrested by NIA on the midnight of Saturday in connection with the case.
