MUMBAI: The ED searched multiple properties of former home minister Anil Deshmukh here and in Nagpur and arrested his personal secretary Sanjeev Palande and personal assistant Kundan Shinde past midnight on Friday as part of its probe into a money laundering case tied to a CBI FIR against Deshmukh for corruption.
They are the first arrests in the bribery allegation against Deshmukh.
The ED had earlier conducted searches at the premises of Palande, of additional collector rank, and Shinde, besides interrogating at length Deshmukh’s son Salil who was at their Nagpur GPO chowk home.
The ED is following a trail of Rs 4 crore that it believes is part of money collected by dismissed cop Sachin Waze from 12 bars and passed on to Deshmukh.
“The money from the bar owners was deposited into accounts of shell firms and then diverted to an entity linked to the Deshmukh family,” said a source.
After hours of grilling ex-min’s aides, ED makes first arrestsFormer home minister Anil Deshmukh’s official bungalow, Dnyaneshwari, at Malabar Hill, his residences at Worli in Mumbai and Nagpur, and the houses of his aides Sanjeev Palande and Kundan Shinde were among those searched on Friday.
The ED officials directed Palande and Shinde to accompany them to their Ballard Estate office for questioning.
They were arrested past midnight, after hours of questioning.
They will be produced in court on Saturday for remand.
Friday’s action came on the back of searches of premises linked to Deshmukh by CBI as well as ED.
The arrests were the first in the corruption allegations case.
Deshmukh, who was present in his Worli home during the search, later told reporters: “After his transfer from Mumbai police commissioner’s post, Param Bir Singh made baseless allegations against me.
There is no truth in that and I will cooperate in the investigation.” Deshmukh has been accused by Singh of asking sacked cop Sachin Waze, now in jail over planting explosives near industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s house and murdering a businessman, to collect Rs100 crore from bars and restaurants every month for him.
A day before the searches, the ED had recorded the statement of DCP Raju Bhujbal, a key witness.
Deshmukh allegedly repeated the Rs 100 crore demand after calling Bhujbal, along with ACP Sanjay Patil, at his official residence.
Lashing out at Singh, Deshmukh alleged on Friday that all the officers involved in planting of explosives and murder of Mansukh Hiren were directly reporting to him and so he can’t escape responsibility.
“When we found that the role of Param Bir Singh was suspicious and that all the officers involved in the serious crime were his trusted men, we shunted him out.
So long as he was Mumbai police commissioner, he had maintained a discreet silence.
A day after he was shifted, he made baseless and false allegations.
My contention is that if he was so serious about corruption, he should have made the allegations when he was CP,” said Deshmukh.
In March, the state government had shunted out Singh due to unacceptable lapses in handling the planting of explosives case.
After the controversy, the CBI has registered a corruption case against Deshmukh on the direction of the Bombay high court, following which he quit as minister.
Subsequently, the ED also registered a money laundering case to investigate the trail of the money illegally collected from bar owners.
(With inputs from Prafulla Marpakwar)