The Crime Branch sleuths of the Thane police have arrested Dharmasingh Shivbali Singh Thomar, alias Sanjay Singh, the main absconding accused in the much-discussed 2015 Malwani-Malad hooch tragedy which had claimed 106 lives and rendered 76 others.
Sanjay Singh was on Monday produced before a Thane court, which remanded in police custody till May 25.
Announcing the arrest of Sanjay Singh, Thane Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh said: “We arrested him at Indore in connection with our case involving the alleged supply of chemicals required for illicit liquor manufacture. After our interrogation, we will hand over Sanjay Singh to the Mumbai for trial in the Malvani liquor tragedy case”.
Acting on a tip off that Sanjay Singh (39) who had supplied chemicals for manufacture of illicit liquor to a bootlegger at Shil-Daighar near Thane, was staying at Indore in Madhya Pradesh, a team of Thane police headed by senior inspector Nitin Thakre, went to Indore and took him into custody.
During the initial interrogation, Sanjay Singh confessed to have played a key role in the 2015 Malwani-Malad hooch tragedy.
It may be recalled that nearly 200 persons, aged between 18 and 60 years, had consumed liquor on June 17, 2015 at an illegal joint near the area around the Jurassic Park resort at Malvani. Many of the victims were rushed to the nearby hospitals in the early hours June 18, after they showed symptoms like nausea, irritation and headache.
In the tragedy, as many as 106 people were killed and 76 others took ill at Malad’s Malwani locality in north Mumbai.
Nearly three months after the illicit liquor tragedy, the Mumbai police on September 10, 2015 filed a charge-sheet in the case against 16 persons, before the Esplanade magistrate’s court.
In their 13,760 page chargesheet, the city crime branch sleuths — who had investigated the case — named 14 arrested persons and two other absconders as accused in the case. The chargesheet comprised statements of 577 witnesses.