A Thane sessions court, on Friday, ordered the Rabodi police station in Thane to provide protection to the family of suspended Assistant Police Inspector Sachin Vaze after his family approached the court with an application for the same.
The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), which is investigating the Mansukh Hiran murder case on Friday, also filed a reply to the anticipatory bail application filed by Vaze in the case. Shortly after the court had denied him interim protection pending the hearing of the pre-arrest bail plea, he had been arrested by the NIA in the Antilia bomb scare case.
While rejecting his plea in the Hiran murder case on March 12, the court had said that it found that on February 27 and February 28 that the deceased was along with Vaze in Mumbai. Later, Hiran’s body was found and the offence was registered against unknown persons. It considered the statement of Hiran’s wife to the police in which she said that Vaze and Hiran were regularly in contact. The court noted that she had directly made allegations against him in her complaint. It had further said then that investigation is at a primary stage by the ATS and the offence of murder being serious and accused being unknown, thorough investigation is necessary by ATS.
Vaze had claimed in his plea for anticipatory bail that he had himself joined the investigation and had been interrogated for eight hours by senior officers, including the DCP. Further, he said that he was at Dongri in south Mumbai at the relevant time and there was no reason to suspect him. Vaze’s lawyer had also said that he had been framed in 2004 in another case, referring to the Khwaja Yunus custodial death case, and said that he had suffered arrest, harassment and mental agony then.
