Commissioner vs Crime Branch
After the Mumbai police arrested four shooters of the Ravi Pujari gang on Wednesday, and hopefully nipped in the bud what was looking like the revival of 90s' underworld extortion raj, one would have assumed the force would be in a celebratory mood. Right? Wrong.
All that the exceptional piece of investigation carried out by the Crime Branch - a team of officers disguised as labourers made a slum in Navi Mumbai its home for five days to arrest the first shooter -- has achieved is a deeply divided police force.
On one side you have Commissioner Arup Patnaik, who obviously believes in a central command and wants to hold all its levers. On the other side is the Crime Branch led by Joint Commissioner of Police Himanshu Roy.
While this division in the force is at least a couple of months old now, the investigations into firing by Ravi Pujari shooters in which two employees of a real estate developer were killed on March 14, has brought the worst out of this war between two vital wings of Mumbai police -- the commissioner's office and the Crime Branch.
Since the double murder took place around the time when several of builders in western suburbs were receiving threats from Pujari, the Crime Branch had begun looking into the case.
They were also investigating two more cases of firing by Pujari shooters -- one at a construction site in Navi Mumbai and the other in Nashik.
Patnaik, however, formed a special anti-extortion team to separately investigate the murders and the firing incidents.
It came to a point when the Crime Branch and Patnaik's special team led by Assistant Commissioner of Police Sanjay Jambhulkar began chasing the same leads and same informers.
As the friction grew, Jambhulkar allegedly picked up some informers and their families and put them under watch at the special cell's office in Meghwadi, Bandra. They were instructed not to share any information with the Crime Branch.
However, since the Crime Branch was on the case longer than the special cell, they naturally had a head start.
Despite restricted access to some of the informers, the Crime Branch managed to crack the case and arrest four of Pujari's men.
Patnaik, after taking over from Sanjeev Dayal, has often expressed his dislike for the Mumbai Crime Branch.
Soon after his appointment, he had taken the Social Service Branch and the CB Control, a specialised wing of Mumbai police that fights adulteration, under his wings.
Both these departments, traditionally recognised as money spinners for its officers, were till then controlled by the Crime Branch.
Patnaik was of the view that both Social Service Branch and CB Control were being misused by officers to make money.
Crime Branch officers, on their part, point out that special squads of anti-extortion cell, similar to what Patnaik formed to investigate the double murder, had a history of becoming a law unto themselves.
"When M N Singh took over as the CP in late 90s, he found that these squads were involved in illegal activities. He disbanded these squads and passed on their responsibilities to the Crime Branch," a former IPS officer told Mumbai Mirror.
Late last year, after a series of shootouts in western suburbs, Additional Commissioner of Police Amitabh Gupta had formed a similar squad which arrested several of Pujari men in September-October. However, after peace was restored in the region, this squad was disbanded.
Some new developments have also added to the differences between the Crime Branch and the Commissioner.
» The abrupt transfer of Unit 11 Inspector, Milind Khetle, to the citizens' facilitation centre.
» The transfer of Crime Branch DCP Nisar Tamboli to head Zone III.
Both decisions, sources said, were taken without consulting top Crime Branch bosses.
Khetle, who is a seasoned investigator and has several good detections to his credit, was summoned by Patnaik recently and transferred to a side posting following a news report that he had tried to influence a witness in the case against encounter specialist Pradip Sharma. This witness has already been declared hostile by the court.
After DCP Nisar Tamboli, who was working with Crime Branch for the past two years and was holding additional charge of Zone III, was asked to leave, Himanshu Roy's team now does not have a single DCP-level officer.
Mumbai police's spokesperson, DCP Rajkumar Vhatkar, , denied any rift in the police force. "I do not think the allegations should be taken seriously.
In Mumbai, the Crime Branch and the local police investigate cases simultaneously in a competitive spirit and in this case too the competition may have led to some confusion. If we come across any deliberate mischief, we will inquire into the matter."
A senior officer, however, defended Jambhulkar. He said, “Jambhulkar has only done what Crime Branch has been doing with the local police for several years.”
