What happened to Maruti Kamble?

 

Wonder who Maruti Kamble is? Maruti Kamble was a name of a character of a military man in the Marathi cinema titled ‘Saamna’ directed by Jabbar Patel in 1974. The movie that had entered the 25^th Berlin International Film Festival talks about a missing Maruti Kamble who was a metaphor used by playwright Vijay Tendulkar to channel the voices of those who were exploited by the corrupt system.

The protagonist is an inveterate drunkard, yet valiant ‘Master’ who had challenged a corrupt friend-turned-foe Hindurao Patil (the ruler). A teacher takes on this Patil to learn about the fate of Maruti Kamble who had also earlier challenged Patil’s economic and political clout. And hence Hindurao had falsely implicated Kamble in a crime. Later Kamble disappeared from the scene, and no one knew what had happened to Kamble and thus the poser – Maruti Kamble cha kai zhala? (What happened to Maruti Kamble?).

The Maha Vikas Aghadi government in the state is like this Hindurao Patil. Its two-and-a-half-year tenure can be described as a period of fraudulent practices, deception, dictatorship, and cruelty. In fact, the number of instances when the government has deceived its voters can be a subject for dissertation. And not always does this brutal face of the government gets noticed by the common man.

Recently, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) filed a chargesheet in the mysterious death of businessman Mansukh Hiran. The chargesheet clearly stated that former cop Sachin Vaze had paid Rs 45 lakh to another former police officer Pradip Sharma for killing Mansukh Hiran. While going through the chronology of this episode, it will be realised that Sachin Vaze was suspended from the police service in 2004 in connection with the death of a person named Khwaja Younus.

In 2007, Vaze tendered his resignation, but it wasn’t accepted as the investigation into the death was in progress. In 2008, Vaze joined the Shiv Sena. In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power in the state. The Shiv Sena, which had later joined the government, had pressed its demand to the then chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to reinstate Vaze. But after examining the legal aspects of the case, Fadnavis had refused to take Vaze back into the police force.

After the results of the assembly elections in 2019, the Shiv Sena betrayed the Bharatiya Janata Party and got the chief ministerial position with help from the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress.

On June 5, 2020, when the Covid-19 restrictions were in force, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray decided to reinstate Vaze in the police service. The reason cited for reinstating Vaze was that there was shortage of manpower in the police force owing to the pandemic. While taking this decision, the chief minister had defied the order of the High Court as well. Vaze was deployed to the Crime Intelligence Department and was assigned the investigations of several important crimes.

Vaze’s true face came to the fore in February 2021 when Scorpio car laden with explosives was found outside businessman Mukesh Ambani’s residence on February 25, 2021. This Scorpio belonged to Mansukh Hiran. This incidence caused a stir across the country. Later, Hiran was found dead in a creek near Thane on March 5, 2021.

Former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had, in the Legislature, revealed with proofs that Vaze was involved in the incident. At that time, the incumbent chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had strongly backed Vaze. The chief minister had asked – “Is Vaze Osama bin Laden? Are you trying to implicate him only because he nabbed someone?”. This had raised everyone’s eyebrows.

Fadnavis had alleged that Vaze was involved in Hiran’s death based on Vaze’s telephonic conversations. Instead of verifying the allegation, the manner in which the chief minister had backed Vaze was shocking.

After the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took charge of the investigation, various aspects of this mysterious case came to light. Based on the findings of the case people began drawing inferences with the embellishments in Alfred Hitchcock’s mysterious novels, since the threads of the case were pointing straight at some of the big political figures.

The truth was revealed in the chargesheets of the NIA. Since the chief minister himself is backing an officer working as an assistant police inspector, stories of what is prevalent in the police force became the talk of the town. The moment the authorities and the police officers realised they might get dragged into it; they began distancing themselves. This led to allegations and counter allegations by the then home minister Anil Deshmukh and the then by police commissioner Parambir Singh followed by the arrest of Deshmukh.

Recently, i.e., a few months ago, it was revealed that one of the ministers in the Thackeray government – Nawab Malik had bought land from the criminals who were linked with the Mumbai bomb blasts. Former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had, with ample evidence, revealed that Malik had indulged in the land deal only to ensure that the properties of those accused of being involved in the Mumbai bomb blasts do not get confiscated. Malik is now in custody.

The arrest of Sachin Vaze and Nawab Malik has shed light on the modus operandi of the Thackeray government. The Thackeray government does not find anything wrong in supporting people like Vaze and Malik. Do words like law, constitution ever exist in the dictionary of these leaders?

The government has, time and again, shown that it isn’t concerned about the law-and-order situation in the state. Since the chief of the government’s attitude is to keep the law under wraps, ministers like Jeetendra Awhad can allegedly thus show the audacity to beat up a youth inside a government bungalow for criticising the government. The moment anyone utters a word against the chief minister, police implicate the person in some or the other offence. Also, the police ensures that the instructions to them are executed immediately.

Neither the Aghadi government nor the police machinery is concerned about how such deeds are putting both, the law-and-order situation, and the constitution, in jeopardy.

 

(Article Pre-Published in Times of India, 19 May 2022)

Keshav Upadhye, chief spokesperson