A day after Rakesh Maria was removed as Mumbai Police Commissioner and promoted as Director General of Police Home Guards, uncertainty loomed large as to whether he would continue to head the investigations into the high-profile Sheena Bora murder case.
Though Maharashtra’s Additional Chief Secretary (Home) K P Bakshi had on Tuesday confirmed that he would continue the investigations in the Sheena Bora murder case, sources close to Maria said that he was reluctant to monitor the probe in the changed circumstances.
Intense speculation about his reluctance to head the Sheena Bora murder probe came on a day when Maria denied reports saying that he was contemplating resigning from the service. “I am not thinking of resigning. Reports saying so are not true,” Maria told PTI in the morning.
However, what reportedly miffed Maria was the fact that despite Bakshi’s statement on Tuesday, he had not till Wednesday evening received a written communication from the State Government asking him to carry on with the investigations in a manner he was doing prior to his transfer.
Another thing that has upset Maria to no end is a suggestion by Mumbai’s former Police Commissioner and current BJP MP from Bhagpat, Satyapal Singh that the former had been transferred out of his post owing to his proximity to former media honcho Peter Mukherjea, who is the husband of Indrani Mukherjea who is prime accused in Sheena Bora murder case. Singh had told an English television channel on Tuesday: “There has to be something, why else the transferIJ I have heard he was close to Peter Mukerjea”.
Rebutting Singh’s comment, Maria has been quoted as saying that he would swear by his sons that he had never met either Peter or Indrani before he questioned them at the Khar police station last week.
Sources said that another reason for Maria’s reluctance to head the probe was his apprehension that he might neither get a free-hand to investigate the complicated murder case nor would he be able to marshal all the resources like an incumbent city police chief.
This is given that most of the police officers, whom he had hand-picked for the investigations, would be technically reporting to Mumbai’s new Police Commissioner Ahmed Javed. “Since he does not normally brook interference from any quarters in any investigation, it is unlikely that Maria will agree to continue to monitor the Sheena Bora murder probe. If anything, he may change his mind only if Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis (who holds the State Home portfolio) intervenes in the situation and assures him that he would be given a free-hand to investigate the case,” a senior police officer said.
Meanwhile, the Maharashtra Government continues to find itself on a sticky wicket over the hurried manner in which it shunted out Maria out of the CP’s post, without waiting till September 30 when he was due for promotion.
On a day when speculation was rife that the IPS lobby had played a key role in the exit of Maria, Javed’s appointment as Mumbai’s new CP has thrown up another question as to why the State Government did not choose to convene the Police Establishment Board to select the new police commissioner, a procedure that the Home Ministry had followed when Maria was appointed as the city CP last year.
It is another matter that the State Government appointed Maria as the Mumbai CP in February 2014, by superseding him and another senior IPS officer Vijay Kamble. At that Javed was appointed as the DGP (Home Guards), a post he is now swapping with Maria.