Thane’s Commissioner of Police (CP) Jaijeet Singh is at the centre of a major controversy, with the opposition slamming him almost daily. Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray, his son Aaditya Thackeray, the NCP’s Jitendra Awhad, Ajit Pawar and Anand Paranjpe and Congress Thane unit president Vikram Chavan have all come down heavily on Singh “for failing to stem the deteriorating law and order situation in Thane”.
Thane is the home turf of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the opposition is creating the impression that the law and order situation in the city is far from satisfactory. Uddhav Thackeray has gone to the extent of saying that Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, who is in charge of the home portfolio, has no control over the Thane city police since the CP reports only to CM Shinde. Thackeray has even challenged Fadnavis to transfer Singh out of Thane.
Singh rarely interacts with citizens of Thane or the media
Singh is an IPS officer of the 1990 batch and replaced Vivek Phansalkar as the CP in May 2021. Phansalkar is now the CP of Mumbai. He is now caught in the cross hairs of bitter politicking in the city.
The problem is complicated by the fact that Singh rarely interacts with citizens of Thane or the media. Messages from the Free Press Journal to him remained unanswered. Aaditya Thackeray stated recently that when his father recently went to meet Singh, the latter simply left his office to avoid meeting him.
The manner in which the Thane police grossly mishandled the Roshni Shinde case has become a major issue. Even though Shinde, who belongs to the SS (UBT), was beaten up by women supporters of the CM, the police did not register even a non-cognisable case for several days.
Mahesh Aher beating incident
Earlier, an assistant municipal commissioner Mahesh Aher was beaten up in his office compound by NCP activists even though there was advance intelligence of such an incident. An audio tape in which Aher is allegedly heard threatening Awhad and his family became viral. But till date the Thane police have been unable to confirm if indeed it was Aher’s voice, even though the allegations are extremely serious.
Vaibhav Kadam, a police guard of Awhad, was recently found dead on the railway tracks. Even though the case was taken over by the Railway Protection Force, the Thane police did precious little to solve the mystery.
Kadam was an accused in a case relating to the brutal attack on Anant Karmuse, a Thaneresident, by cops at the private residence of Awhad. Even though the Karmuse case was a serious one, allegedly involving Awhad, the Thane policy soft-pedalled the entire issue.
Thane was for long a bastion of the Shiv Sena. The foundation for it was laid by the late Anand Dighe, the political mentor of CM Shinde. However, after Shinde ditched Uddhav and joined hands with the BJP to become the CM, the situation in the city has become acrimonious and a reticent Singh is finding himself at the centre of it all.
