Mumbai, May 4: Police Sub-Inspector Hemant Desai of the Nagpada police station today denied meeting or telephoning key witness Baldev Singh two or three days after gangsters Sada Pawle and Vijay Tandel were killed in a police encounter on September 26 last year.Earlier, Baldev in his deposition before the Commission of Enquiry into Encounters had maintained that Desai had telephoned him and had asked him to come to Ghatkopar police station from where he was taken to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) and made to sign the muster on September 26 and 27. He had also maintained that from the CST station he was taken to Nagpada police station and was made to prepare several receipts on the computer pertaining to ticketless travel for the two days and thereafter sign the receipts.
During the cross-examination by P A Sebastian, counsel for Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights, Desai denied all the allegations made by Baldev. He also denied instigating the railway police to arrest Anand Pawle onMarch 22, 1998. The railway police had arrested Anand in connection with a cheating case on March 22.
The PSI also denied that on the day of the encounter there were six persons occupying the car and not five, that the sixth person was the private security guard of Assistant Police Inspector Vijay Salaskar. Desai denied that the security guard had squatted and shot Tandel at point blank range. Baldev had said that he did not know the name of the person who shot Tandel but could identify him. However, when the police team stood before the court in an identification parade, Baldev said that none of the persons who stood in the parade shot Tandel.
Desai also denied that the police pressured and intimidated Baldev from deposing against the police and that the police had intimidated Baldev and Anand Pawle to retract their affidavits filed on March 2, 1998. Anand, Anita and sister Hausabai had retracted their affidavits claiming that they were in Shirdi on the day of the encounter.
Baldev also had retractedhis affidavit but later stuck to his first affidavit where he maintained that he was witness to the encounter killings of Pawle and Tandel.
The PSI also denied that the gangsters were unarmed and that the duo had told the police that they would surrender and despite their pleas to surrender, the police shot both in cold blood.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
