Editorial: Making sense of a ‘tall’ tale

Now, reports citing anonymous senior officials of the National Investigating Agency, which is investigating the case, suggest that it owes entirely to one police officer’s thirst for reclaiming his “lost glory”.

The officer, of course, is the controversial Sachin Vaze, who was suspended in 2004 and quit the police force in 2007, only to find himself reinstated in 2020 by the Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra. Vaze, who made a reputation as an encounter specialist, joined the Shiv Sena after quitting the force. Once he was back, he enjoyed a direct line with the top political bosses, and was given charges of extremely sensitive cases – in short, he was allowed to punch way beyond his weight, post-reinstatement.

In a way, the “lost glory” hypothesis puts a lid on speculation about a large-scale conspiracy to threaten the Ambanis. If true, then Vaze merely planted the explosives and discovered them to further his career. But there are unexpected twists and turns in this story that make it explosive for other reasons. First, there is a murder, which is now pinned on Vaze, who is charged with killing the person he wanted to frame – the owner of the gelatin-packed SUV. There is evidence that the SUV was in Vaze’s possession for a while before it was discovered outside Antilia.

Of course, from another perspective, one of the most important issues this incident has exposed is the pernicious politician-policeman nexus. Parambir Singh, former Police Commissioner of Mumbai, has alleged that Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh had tasked Vaze with collecting Rs 100 crore per month from bars and illegal rackets in the city. And it has now come to light that Shiv Sena boss Uddhav Thackeray lobbied to have Vaze reinstated in 2018, when the BJP government was in power. Although Sharad Pawar declared there was no reason for his partyman Deshmukh to resign, the developments have caused a strain between the NCP and Sena.

The last has not been heard on the Antilia case. Reports of an extended booking in a five-star hotel by Vaze, who checked in with a fake name and five large black bags, and was accompanied by an unidentified woman, and cash recoveries made from a vehicle allegedly under his possession, suggest that more dirt will be dredged. What this means for the government in Maharashtra, which is already beleaguered by a host of issues including a disturbingly high COVID second wave, remains to be seen.