The National Investigation Agency (NIA) sleuths, accompanied by arrested police officer Sachin Vaze, sought to re-create the crime scene involving the planting of a SUV with 20 gelatin sticks and a threat note near Industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s residence “Antilia” in the small hours of Saturday.
The NIA sleuths took Vaze, who is under their custody till March 25, to the spot where the gelatin sticks laden Scorpio had been recovered on February 25, and tried to re-create the crime scene, which is in the vicinity of Industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s skyscraper mansion “Antilia” on Carmichael Road in south Mumbai.
Having cordoned off the otherwise busy road, the NIA asked Vaze ‘walk down the road’ near Antilia from the spot where the SUV was recovered, in its effort to check his gait and timings and sought to compare with the findings investigations conducted and evidence collected so far in the case. Earlier, the NIA had taken to various other locations in Mumbai and neighbouring Thane, where now under arrest Vaze lives, to re-create the entire set of circumstances culminating in the SUV imbroglio on Feb. 25.
On its part, the NIA so far seized five high-end cars --a Scorpio, Innova, Prado and two Mercedes. The investigators suspect that four seized vehicles had been used to carry out reconnaissance of the site near Ambani’s residence where a Scorpio laden with 20 gelatin sticks was recovered on February 25. They also suspect that a few of them were used by Thane businessman Mansukh Hiran. whose body was recovered from the marshy Reti-Bunder creek Mumbra in the neighbouring Thane district on March 5.
Vaze is a prime suspect in both the SUV planting case and subsequent alleged murder of Hiran.
While the NIA is currently investigating the SUV recovery case, Maharashtra’s ATS is looking in to the murder of Hiren.