Thane builder suicide: 2 corporators remanded in police custody for 14 days, 2 others to undergo check-up

The other two have been taken to J J Hospital to ensure they are fit for police custody.

Parmar, the owner of Cosmos Group, had shot himself dead on October 7 inside one of his under-construction projects.

The corporators — Vikrant Chavan (Congress), Najib Mulla, Hanumant Jagdale (both NCP) and Sudhakar Chavan (Independent) —surrendered at the Kasar Wadavli police station in Thane on Saturday morning and were placed under arrest as per the order of the Bombay High Court on December 1. While the court had told them to surrender immediately, they had sought additional time.
“Two corporators have been remanded in police custody and two others will be produced in court after they undergo a fitness test,” said Special Public Prosecutor Raja Thakare.

Thakare also argued that there are some discrepancies between the facts coming out of the probe and the statements of the accused corporators and that it needs to be investigated.

After their arrest by Dilip Gore, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Vartak Nagar Division, the accused were taken to Thane Civil Hospital where doctors declared Mulla fit but said the other three required additional medical tests. The police said that Vikrant Chavan refused to travel to J J Hospital while Sudhakar Chavan and Jagdale raised no such objections.

The corporators had come under the scanner after a forensic test was conducted on the 13-page suicide note that Parmar had left behind. The names were first written and later cancelled out as Parmar wrote in his diary that “he feared that his family would be harassed”. The note, the police said, revealed that a nexus of corporators and officials was harassing him for bribes. Following this, the police had registered a case of abetment of suicide against the corporators and ‘criminal misconduct’ under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

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