A special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) Court on Monday extended the police custody of the eight accused in the J Dey murder case till July 18. The prosecution argued that the plan to kill the senior reporter was hatched outside Mumbai and the police wanted to find out more details.
“The accused are not even revealing much about the two global roaming cards which [gangster] Chhota Rajan gave them. Police have come to know that the accused were making international calls using the cards. We have not yet been able to recover the cards. We need to find more about them,” special public prosecutor Dilip Shah said.
The police on June 27 arrested Rohee Thangappan Joseph alias Satish Kalya (34), Abhijeet Kasharam Shinde (28), Arun Janardan Dake (27), Sachin Suresh Gaikwad (27), Anil Bhanudas Waghmode (35), Nilesh Narayan Shedge alias Bablu (34) and Mangesh Damodar Agawane (25). They later arrested Vinod Asrani alias Vinod Chembur, a builder and bookie, known to be a close associate of Chhota Rajan.
The Mumbai police slapped the MCOCA on all of them on July 8.
“It is a conspiracy case in which a daylight murder has been committed. It happened at a place where traffic kept moving from here and there. So it is very difficult that anyone gives clues to it. We have to collect indirect evidence. We have to gather circumstantial evidence,” Mr. Shah said.
“I argued that the police have to find out who parted with the money — Rs. 2 lakh at Nainital [and] Rs. 3 lakh at Nalasopara. The weapons were given outside Mumbai.” Mr. Shah said the mastermind behind the plan moved to other cities to hire people from there. “They wanted to find people without any criminal record. So they moved to other cities. They hired four-five persons from different places. Then all the seven accused came to Mumbai.”
The prosecutor did not mention any detail of how many days before the crime had the seven accused come to Mumbai.
“The police have seized certain mobile phones and they are investigating the CDR [Call Detail Report] of these numbers. After investigation, the police came to know that Chhota Rajan parted with four or five mobiles, which were used by the accused to make international calls and calls outside Mumbai,” Mr. Shah said.
He said: “We want to find out who parted with the arms? Who parted with the money? How was it routed? I said that we want police custody [of the accused] to investigate the nexus.”
“I told the court that these are noted criminals. If police custody is not granted, we can't rule out the possibility that they may discard or shield the evidence by passing on message to those who visit them.”
However, defence alleged that the police were ill-treating the accused.
