Tags:
Journalism of Courage
APRIL 16: Barely 24 hours after he claimed he would be able to recognise the police officer who had shot gangster Vijay Tandel on September 26 last year, Baldev Singh, a key witness in the encounter probe, today drew a blank at an identification parade. All except one officer and a constable of the 14-member team that had ambushed dreaded gangster Sada Pawle and his close aide Vijay Tandel at Ghatkopar (east) were present for the parade.
Yesterday Baldev had told the Enquiry into Encounters Commission that he had seen PSI Vijay Salaskar killing Sada Pawle, but had maintained that he was not aware of the name of the officer who had taken a shot at Tandel. The police team which stood in the identification parade included Assistant Police Inspector Vijay Salaskar, Police Sub-Inspectors Avinash Sawant, Hemant Desai, Satish Mayekar and Sachin Kadam, Police Constables Prakash Jambale, Bhosale, Shivaji Kadam, Pradeep Shinde, Krishna Jadhav, Arun Jadhav, Santosh Shetye and Jagannath Ghadge. The counsel for police,Harshad Ponda, told the commission that one of the police constable who was part of the team was out of town to serve a warrant.
Meanwhile, during the cross-examination Ponda, grilled Baldev, an employee of the Central Railway, over his allegations that police had forced him to sign the muster for the day the encounter took place. Baldev had also charged that PSI Hemant Desai had forced him to prepare receipts worth Rs 700 of fines collected for the same day. Answering questions Baldev said that the receipt for payment of fine for ticketless travel were bound in a book called the Excess Fare Receipts Book and added that the book was kept with the ticket collector during off duty hours. He said though the rules demanded that the amount collected in the form of fines be deposited within 48 hours, he took 72 hours do so as he did not have the money with him.Baldev said he had taken leave on September 28 and 30 to relax as advised by PSI Desai and added that Desai had contacted him three to four times on thetelephone between September 27 and the day he was called to the Ghatkopar Railway station. On every occasion, he claimed, Desai pressured him not to divulge a thing of what had transpired on September 26, 1997.
He further said that even after he made the fake receipts and signed the muster, Desai continued to call him wanting to know if Anand Pawle (Sada Pawle’s brother) was filing any case against the police.
