Mumbai: The special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court has refused bail to 48-year-old businessman Manish Soni, who drove the car in which Thane trader Mansukh Hiran was killed in March 2021. The case is related to the Antilia bomb threat case in which suspended cop Sachin Vaze and former police officer Pradeep Sharma are in jail.
While rejecting Soni’s bail plea, the court said he had knowledge of the crime and agreed with the conspirators over Hiran’s murder, even though he became part of it at a later stage. Soni, however, has denied knowledge of planning and execution of the crime. He said he was just driving the car and was not involved in the murder or disposing of the victim’s body into a creek.
Soni further said that his confession statement was not voluntary and he was handcuffed. The court said that at this juncture, the claim that his confessional statement was not voluntary is inadmissible.
On February 25, 2021, an SUV was found abandoned near industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s home residence Antilia with 20 loose gelatin sticks and a threat note. On March 5, Hiran – the owner of the SUV – was found dead in a creek near Mumbra, with six handkerchiefs stuffed in his mouth and his face covered by a scarf.
Soni, Satish Mothkuri, Santosh Shelar and Anand Jadhav were arrested for the murder, which the NIA alleged was part of a larger conspiracy and committed at the behest of Vaze and Sharma. Besides Vaze and Sharma, dismissed Mumbai police officers Riyazuddin Kazi and Sunil Mane were also arrested in connection with the bomb scare case.
