The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday traced a luxury Italian sports bike from Daman during their ongoing investigations in the Antilia bomb scare and businessman Mansukh Hiran's murder case.
The two-wheeler is registered in the name of a woman reportedly known to suspended assistant police inspector and prime suspect in both the crimes, Sachin Vaze. The officials refused to divulge further details related to the woman. A team of Pune forensic department had also visited the NIA office on Monday and met officials.
Sources in the agency said that the process to seize the vehicle and bring it to the NIA office in South Mumbai was underway.
The sports bike becomes the latest addition to a long list of vehicles recovered by the NIA in the case. So far, the NIA has seized eight different vehicles which were allegedly used by Vaze for various reasons before and during the period of the incident. The seized vehicles include a Scorpio, white Innova, two Mercedez Benz cars, a Land Cruiser Prado, a Volvo, a white Mitsubishi Outlander and an Audi.
Besides vehicles, the agency had seized several other gadgets such as computers, hard disks, a printer, a laptop, two identical fake number plates, CCTV DVRs from the Mithi River and had also seized some documents related to the crime during the probe.
The NIA has custody of Vaze till April 7.
A gelatine sticks laden SUV was found near the Antilia residence of top industrialist Mukesh Ambani on February 25. The SUV was found to be owned by Hiran, whose body was found in Mumbra creek on March 5. Hiran had lodged a complaint with the Vikhroli police stating that his SUV had got stolen on February 17.
A probe conducted by the NIA had revealed that Hiran had handed over the key of the SUV to Vaze, who had taken the possession of the said SUV and later used that vehicle to place gelatine sticks and park it as Carmichael Road, officials said.
Initial probe conducted by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad into Hiran's murder revealed that Vaze and his accomplices convicted police constable Vinayak Shinde and bookie Naresh Gor had played an active role in Hiran's murder. The officials suspect that Hiran was smothered to death on the night of March 04 and his body was disposed in the creek later. ATS had later apprehended Shinde and Gor and later gave their custody to the NIA since the Hiran's murder case probe was handed over to the central agency by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
