Mumbai: NIA arrests two more in Antilia-Mansukh Hiran cases

MUMBAI: National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday arrested two more people, including a confidant of a retired inspector as part of the probe into the planting of explosives in a Scorpio near industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s house at Carmichael Road and subsequent murder of Scorpio owner Mansukh Hiran .
Santosh Shellar and Anand Jadhav are residents of Kurar village in Malad. Sources said that Tavera which NIA had seized last month belongs to Shellar, a confidant of a former policeman known for encounter killings. With this arrest, the total number of accused arrested in the case touched seven.
NIA is probing the planting of gelatine sticks outside Ambani’s house on February 25 and subsequent murder of Scorpio owner Mansukh on March 5. An NIA court remanded them to police custody till June 21. NIA sources said that they want to confront the duo with arrested police inspector Sunil Mane in Taloja jail.
Mane and Sachin Waze had on March 4 called Mansukh to Ghodbunder Road in Thane, posing as inspector Tawde, took him to a hotel and handed him over to the killers.
NIA also stumbled upon CCTV footage of the two arrested accused taking Mansukh’s custody.
NIA suspects Mansukh was handed over to Shellar and Jadhav. Shellar then took Mansukh in the Tavera to an unknown location and strangled him, before throwing him in Thane creek. On March 5, police recovered Mansukh’s body in a creek. Sources said the name of one of the two accused had cropped up in the mysterious disappearance and murder of two key witnesses in Chhota Rajan aide Ram Lakhanbhaiyya fake encounter case of 2006. The witnesses, Anil Bheda and Shailesh Tailor, were found murdered.
NIA’s preliminary investigation suggested that Waze wanted to take the credit of “solving” the gelatine sticks case and restore his image that he lost during his 16 years’ suspension in the alleged custodial death of terror suspect Khwaja Yunus. The other plan was to kill two suspected criminals outside Ambani's house in the fake encounter and take credit.