Even as Anil Jaisinghani was declared an absconding accused, the bookie is believed to have shot one of the videos sent to blackmail Amruta Fadnavis, the wife of Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Mumbai Police told a special court on Tuesday. Jaisinghani, his cousin Nirmal, and daughter Aniksha were produced before the special court where Special Judge D D Almale sent Jaisinghani and Nirmal to police custody till March 27 and Aniksha till March 24. Jaisinghani's lawyers claimed that he was arrested illegally and produced before court only 36 hours later. The court, however, said that the reasons put forth by the investigating officer were “satisfactory” and his arrest could not be said to be illegal. The Malabar Hill police had claimed that multiple videos and voice notes were sent to Amruta in February, including a video where Aniksha is purportedly seen filling a bag with currency notes amounting to Rs 1 crore. The police have alleged that the money was offered as a bribe to Amruta in lieu of getting the cases pending against Jaisinghani dropped. The police alleged that the video was manipulated further to falsely claim that the bag was given to a staffer of Amruta. “The bag and the money are yet to be recovered. The investigation shows that the video was shot by accused Anil Jaisinghani and it was from his number that they were sent to the complainant (Amruta). Aniksha has not cooperated with the probe when asked about the number but our technical evidence showed that it belongs to Jaisinghani. The number was also found saved as 'papayaaa' in the phone of Aniksha,” special public prosecutor Jaysing Desai told the court. He also claimed that the phone, an iPhone 8, with the SIM card of the same number was found with Jaisinghani when he was arrested. The police also submitted in its remand application that Aniksha's voice samples were taken to recognise a voice heard in the videos. Police also claimed that Aniksha had written “coded chits” to Amruta. The police said that Aniksha's handwriting samples were taken to confirm the identity of the writer of the chits and also to decode them to interpret their meaning. The police claimed that an iPhone 13 pro max belonging to Aniksha was found with 100 GB data and it was being retrieved for analysis with screen prints being taken of data related to Amruta, the witnesses and co-accused. On the role of Nirmal, the police claimed that he was helping the latter in evading arrest and could also be the user of a phone allegedly used in the offence. The police claimed that Nirmal, a garment trader in Ulhasnagar, looked after Jaisinghani's finances. The remand plea said that the alleged bookie put money in the bank account of Nirmal which was handed over to Aniksha and her brother on his instructions. The police also said that it wanted to probe into how the accused communicated with each other as Jaisinghani has been a proclaimed offender for the last eight years. The police claimed that instead of using a SIM card on the phone, an Internet dongle was used, adding that by refusing to share its password, Aniksha was not cooperating in the probe. Lawyers Mrigendra Singh and Manan Sanghai, representing the three accused, said that no grounds were made to seek further custody of 25-year-old Aniksha, adding that the other two arrests were illegal. “Only because her father is a proclaimed offender, how does it relate to her? Where is she in those FIRs filed against her father. A young girl is being tortured like this. How interesting that only because the complainant is the wife of a big shot, the police have added section 385 (extortion) of the Indian Penal Code. Had there been any element of extortion, they would have mentioned it in the FIR. She is a young girl. Her only fault was that she was a fashion designer of Mrs So and So. It should not matter what the complainant's status is,” the defence lawyers submitted claiming that there were photos of Aniksha and Amruta together including in public places. “When her father was absconding, Mrs So and So had been taking portraits. She (Amruta) has been hugging her., now she (Aniksha) is someone who was extorting money?” the lawyers said. On Jaisinghani, the lawyers said that he was arrested on March 19 at 11.45pm from Gujarat, but not produced before any magistrate for transit remand. They also questioned as to why even though a case against him was pending in Gujarat, the police there had chosen to hand his custody over to the Mumbai Police. They said that the 60-year-old had various ailments and that his blood pressure had shot up to 300. “He was under police protection for 25 years. He was given secret awards for sharing information with the police and was in the good books of various authorities. Suddenly, he has become a villain. There are no cases under section 302 (murder) against him. those pending do not have punishment of more than seven years,” the lawyers argued. The defence lawyers also said that the arrests were “politically motivated” and governed from the “secretariat”.
