Torture, illegal arrests, scandals and hiding murders – The evil empire of Param Bir Singh

Param Bir Singh, the Police Commissioner of Mumbai who has been transferred after the Mukesh Ambani security scare case, is emerging as the real villain of the whole story. Singh, a 1988 batch IPS officer, is known for having the ambition to become the Police Commissioner of Mumbai. In 2019, when the Fadnavis government gave a three-month extension to the then police commissioner Sanjay Barve, Param Bir Singh is said to have smashed crockery in his home out of frustration and anger.

In a private conversion with the media, Param Bir Singh never hid his ambitions and repeatedly mentioned his desire to become the police commissioner of the financial capital of the country. Singh wanted the position in any circumstance and he was always more than willing to make compromises to get to the top.

Hemant Nagrale, a 1987 batch IPS office who has now replaced Param Bir Singh, was the rightful heir to the position of the police commissioner, but Sharad Pawar is said to have told Uddhav Thackeray to supersede him for Param Bir Singh. Param Bir Singh had handled many politically sensitive cases when the Congress-NCP alliance was in power in the state between 1999 to 2014.

In 2008, Singh, the then additional commissioner of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, investigated the Malegaon bomb blast case and arrested two prime accused—Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt. Col. Prasad Purohit— and he purportedly helped the Congress-NCP government frame wrong charges and to build the myth of Hindu terrorism. As per various claims, Param Bir Singh physically tortured Sadhvi Pragya while she was in custody and falsely implicated her in the case.

Sadhvi Pragya was arrested for the Malegaon blasts of 2008 because there was a good chance that the explosive was planted in a motorcycle that was once owned by her, overlooking the fact that she had sold the bike two years before the incident. Narco tests were done on her which bore no incriminating results.

With the arrest of Pragya, however, the then UPA government, which was set to face the general election in few months, manufactured a case of ‘saffron terror’ and ‘Hindu terror’ in order to malign BJP, and Param Bir Singh is said to have been involved in the process.

A few months after the tri-party alliance of Shiv Sena, Congress and the NCP came to power, Param Bir Singh was made the police commissioner of Mumbai – his long-held dream came true – but the country went into lockdown a few weeks after that.

In the very first big case – Sushant Singh Rajpur alleged suicide case – that Param Bir Singh got as the Commissioner of the Mumbai Police, he was soon accused of hesitating to file an FIR. A big controversy arose over the fact that an FIR was not filed in such a high profile case. Moreover, he also junked the Disha Saliyan case in the dustbin despite the fact that links between her death and Rajput’s alleged suicide were emerging.

Just a few months after, he got another chance to prove his loyalty to Maharashtra’s political leadership with the controversial arrest of Arnab Goswami. Sachin Vaze, the police officer who has been arrested by NIA in the Mukesh Ambani bomb-scare case, was a henchman for him. The two enjoyed such bonhomie that Vaze directly reported to Param Bir Singh, bypassing his immediate boss Milind Bharambare.

The political establishment for which Param Bir Singh was working and with whose approval he hatched the Ambani security conspiracy, got him transferred because his arrest is imminent by NIA. Vaze, who is now in trouble for allegedly executing the sinister plot which also involves the death of accused Hiren Mansukh, has been arrested and many big names are expected to come out of this conspiracy.

Anil Deshmukh, the Home Minister of Maharashtra, has tried to play it safe with the transfer of Param Bir Singh to the insignificant (comparatively) post of the Home Gaurd DG. But if NIA’s investigation leads it to Singh, the purported deeds of the police officer – from torture and framing of Sadhvi Pragya to the reality of Rajput’s alleged suicide – would come out in public.