Sachin Waze, after being produced by National Investigation Agency (NIA) in a court following his arrest, in Mumbai. (PTI/File) An enquiry against BMC contractors from whom suspended API Sachin Waze alleged Shiv Sena leader Anil Parab had wanted him to extort money is likely to be closed by the Mumbai Police soon, official sources said.
Waze made the allegations against Parab in a letter he tried to submit before a special NIA court, and which upon the court’s refusal to take on record went viral minutes later. He alleged that Parab had asked him to collect money from the contractors who were the subject of the enquiry.
In the letter containing allegations against Parab, Waze said he had begun the enquiry on the basis of an “anonymous complaint” but had not found anything incriminating against the contractors.
An officer said that the complaint against the BMC four contractors had been taken up by the CIU, then headed by Waze.
“All four contractors were relatives of each other. The complaint against them was that minutes before the BMC tender would close, they would submit their tender online,” an official said. “Their tender would be less than the lowest bid and would win the project. The amount quoted by them would just be slightly lower than the lowest bid. This had led to suspicion that there was someone in the BMC who was leaking information to them,” the official said.
In his letter, referring to this enquiry, Waze said, “In the month of January 2021, Parabji called me to his residence and asked me to look into enquiry against fraudulent contractors listed in the BMC. He told me to collect at least Rs 2 crore from 50 such contractors. The said enquiry is ongoing on an anonymous complaint. The said enquiry was under preliminary enquiry in the CIU and till my transfer from the CIU, nothing incriminating was found.”
In connection with allegations that Parab asked Waze to get Rs 50 crore from a trust against which an enquiry was being conducted last year, a senior official said that so far they have not found any major enquiry being conducted against the trust.
While the opposition sought Parab’s resignation following the letter, he alleged that he was being defamed since he was close to CM Uddhav Thackeray.
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