Former minister Tanaji Sawant’s son Rushiraj Sawant was gone for only four hours. But by the time his flight landed back at the Pune airport at 8.45 pm Monday, he had been reported missing, the Pune Police were scrambling to investigate his possible "kidnapping", and his father had moved the state machinery, including Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis - all in an attempt to get him back. At 4.30 pm Monday, Rushiraj Sawant, 32, the younger of the two sons of former Maharashtra minister and now Shiv Sena MLC Tanaji Sawant, took off with his two friends on a chartered flight to Bangkok. Minutes later, the Pune City Police registered an FIR under kidnapping charges based on a complaint from a staffer at the JSPM Narhe Technical Campus, an institute that's part of the Sawant family-run Jayawant Shikshan Prasarak Mandal (JSPM) Trust. In his complaint at the city’s Sinhagad Road police station, the staffer claimed that Rushiraj, the director of the institute, had allegedly been kidnapped in a Swift car. The case was soon handed over to the Crime Branch. Around the same time, Sawant and his family allegedly contacted the state machinery – including the chief minister of Maharashtra and other senior leaders in Mumbai – as well as the Union Ministry for Civil Aviation. Police say that as their investigation progressed, it became clear that Rushiraj and his two friends had, in fact, boarded a chartered flight to Bangkok. The probe also revealed that Rushiraj had booked the flight the day before for Rs 78 lakh from a Noida-headquartered chartered flight operator. Less than an hour after the kidnapping case was registered, Sawant held a press conference to announce that his son had been “traced”. "It never happens in our home. Even if he (Rushiraj) is going to Wakad in the suburban Pimpri-Chinchwad, he informs me,” Sawant, flanked by senior police officers, told the media. “But when we got to know that he had gone with two friends without taking his car and had taken a private chartered flight, we became concerned… And because of this, I called CP saheb (the Police commissioner of Pune), other senior officers and Fadnavis saheb (CM Devendra Fadnavis). Police are also trying their level best and we are also trying our level best to bring him back". Officials say that a flurry of messages between the state government and the Ministry of Civil Aviation led to the flight being turned around when it was somewhere between Chennai and the Andaman Islands. The drama, which involved the police, central government entities and the media, finally concluded when the flight landed back in Pune at 8.45 pm – all without the knowledge of its three passengers, including Rushiraj. Back in Pune, Rushiraj told the police that he had booked the flight for a “business trip”. He also said that he had gone to Dubai the week before, and, fearing that his family would not approve of “consecutive foreign trips”, had chosen not to inform them about this one. A police source said, “One of Rushiraj's travelling companions is associated with JSPM (the Trust) and the other is a private businessman.” Rushiraj and his older brother Giriraj are office bearers at JSPM and hold positions in several family run companies in agriculture and real estate sector, public records show. Meanwhile, their father Tanaji Sawant, a current Shiv Sena MLC, was a minister in the Eknath Shinde government but was reportedly kept out of the Devendra Fadnavis Cabinet formed in December. Both of Tanaji’s sons are married into the family of Shankar Jagtap, a BJP MLA from Pimpri-Chinchwad. Sources in the Pune Police have conceded that Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol, a BJP leader from Maharashtra, had helped them get in touch with the civil aviation department, which had “contacted” the Thai authorities. Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar too admits that authorities had sought help from the ministry and the Director General of Civil Aviation. “After the FIR was registered, we had made a request to the DDCA that if the aircraft was in Indian territory, it should be told to land in Indian airspace anywhere on India soil. The case could have had widespread implications. From the police point of view, we acted very swiftly and took the case to its logical conclusion in the shortest possible time,” he says. The police now say they will file a closure report in the case. But the episode has sparked opposition allegations of a “family feud” and “misuse of state machinery”, with many leaders demanding a case against Sawant. There are also calls from some quarters for Mohol to resign for “enabling” the drama. “The entire system seems to have been misused just because the son of a politician angrily left for Bangkok. This is nothing but blatant misuse of power,'' says Sanjay Raut, spokesperson of Shiv Sena (UBT), the rival Sena faction. “Both Sawant and Mohol should face action in the matter”. Opposition leaders alleged that the entire system bent over backwards to accommodate one leader. “One of the accused in the Beed sarpanch murder case has still not been found after two months. And here the entire system was moved to get back the son of a former minister.What kind of system has been put in place by the Mahayuti government,” says Baramati MP Supriya Sule, a leader from the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar. However, the Sawants deny any misuse of power, also claiming there was “no family feud”. “We have never had any feuds in the family. I approached the police because he had left without informing anyone in the family,” Sawant claims. His older son Giriraj too claims his father acted “as any parent would”. “No, there was no misuse of power. You should look from the point of view of parents. Their son left without informing anyone. That’s why we approached the police. We want to thank Chief Minister Fadnavis, Deputy chief ministers Shinde and Ajit Pawar, and Mohol for their intervention in bringing Rushiraj back,” he says.
