Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh transferred to Home Guard; Hemant Nagrale to take charge

Mumbai: Under flak for ‘mishandling’ of the bomb scare outside Mukesh Ambani’s residence, Maharashtra Government on Wednesday transferred Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh from the post. Senior IPS officer Hemant Nagrale, holding additional charge of Maharashtra Director General of Police (DGP), will be the new Mumbai Police Commissioner and replace Singh, who has been posted to the state Home Guard, state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said. Deshmukh, who met Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray earlier in the day, made the announcement on Twitter amid speculation in media over Singh’s handling of the Sachin Waze episode. “Big decision of the government. Shri Hemant Nagrale will be the new Mumbai Police Commissioner. Shri Rajnish Seth will have the additional charge of the post of Director General of Police, Maharashtra,” Deshmukh tweeted. “Shri Sanjay Pandey will have the responsibility of Maharashtra State Security Corporation. Shri Param Bir Singh will have the responsibility of the Home Guard, he added. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) governments move comes in the wake of a series of meetings among the ruling Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress alliance leaders. Waze is at the focus of a probe by the National Investigating Agency in a case related to the recovery of an SUV with explosives near Ambani’s house in Mumbai. Mumbai police officer Waze, arrested in the case on 13 March for his alleged role in the crime, was attached to the Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) of the city police’s crime branch till recently. He was suspended after NIA arrested him in the case. The latest development follows Monday’s talks between Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and NCP chief Sharad Pawar, amid reports that Waze had stage-managed the bomb scare on the instructions of Singh. The NIA team recovered some “incriminating” documents and electronic evidence such as laptop, iPad and mobile phones from Waze’s office, an official of the agency said on Tuesday. A black Mercedes car, being used by Waze, was also seized from a parking lot near the CSMT station, and Rs 5 lakh in cash, a note-counting machine, two number plates and some clothes were recovered from it, the official added.