Mumbai’s top crimebuster in jail for scam

As that happened, Anti-Corruption Bureau officers were rummaging through Vagal’s flat at the Bandra Reclamation after registering another case against the former chief of the Mumbai crime branch.

The SIT—headed by retired Director General of Police S S Puri—refused to comment. But sources close to the investigation said Vagal had been charged with ‘‘abusing his office as a public servant for pecuniary gains’’, a euphemism for corruption.

Vagal is the seniormost police officer arrested in Maharashtra and the 57th person in an ever-widening net of policemen, politicians and criminals taken into custody across seven states.

A nuclear physicist and an alumnus of IIT Mumbai and IIM Ahmedabad, Vagal chose the Indian Police Service over IAS in 1976.

Vagal’s last leap into the headlines came in February when he inexplicably ordered the release of 23 bookies.

Vagal spent 11 months as Joint Commissioner of Police (until March 2003) of Mumbai’s crucial crime branch—the unit that deals with the mafia.

The state’s stunned politicians dodged the press. Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal—often accused of shielding corrupt officers—kept insisting he knew very little about the arrest, not even the law under which Vagal was arrested.

‘‘It is very shocking,’’ said Commissioner of Police R S Sharma, himself under SIT investigation—it was asked by the High Court to probe whether or not he was involved—in the Telgi case.

News of Vagal’s arrest spread like wild fire at the colonial-era police headquarters, but there was less surprise here.

‘‘Who’s next?’’ was the question being asked by junior officers.

The arrest of two more senior IPS officers appeared imminent as the SIT—pushed by the High Court—intensified its investigations.

Telgi (46) is accused of printing and distributing stamps and stamp-paper and bribing off police and politicians, first while running a Rs 23,000-core empire and

later to have charges against him watered down and generally looked after well in custody after his first arrest by the Colaba police in 1995.

Vagal’s actions when he was Joint Commissioner of Police (crime) until March 2003 came under investigation, particularly after Telgi was allowed to stay in a Sion hotel and other accused were hosted in air-conditioned rooms in Chembur last year.

Brought in under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), Vagal—questioned on Friday morning by SIT officer-in-charge DIG Subodh Kumar Jaiswal and his deputy, Superintendent of Police Chhagan Hilal Wakade—will be produced in a Pune court, where the SIT will ask for his custody.

Telgi’s cosiness with the police first came to public attention when Jaiswal and Karnataka Additional Director General of Police (Karnataka) R Sreekumar found Telgi in his flat at 7, Cuffe Parade on January 13.

That was when the needle of suspicion began pointing to Vagal, say SIT sources. Then Deputy Commissioner of Police (crime) Pradip Sawant and his deputy, Assistant Commissioner of Police S Padwal, too were questioned for their handling of Telgi.

Startling facts came to light after SIT officials seized a handwritten note book from Abdul Karim Ladsab Telgi’s accounts-in-charge Khalid Abdul Sattar Badami, listing pay-offs.

Police Inspector Dilip Pandurang Kamath was arrested after an entry in the note book indicated that he had received Rs 50,000 from Telgi.

Meanwhile, Vagal was shunted out of the crime branch and posted to the office of the DGP.

DCP Sawant and ACP Padwal continued to be attached to the crime branch, but Sawant was transferred on Thursday.

Sources in the SIT said at least six more crime branch officers could be arrested in the coming weeks.

A few are attached to the Dharavi Unit and were close to API Kamath.