15 July,2021 07:32 AM IST | Mumbai | Faizan Khan
ED is probing money laundering angle in the Anil Deshmukh episode
Days after sacked cop Sachin Waze allegedly told the Enforcement Directorate that Anil Deshmukh was his âNo.1', the former home minister's lawyer, Kamlesh Ghumre, said on Wednesday that âNo. 1' had to be Mumbai's police chief. He said one does not know what one is saying before the agency but in local parlance, if a policeman is saying âNo.1' then he is referring to the chief of his force.
Ghumre made the claims as he addressed the press on Deshmukh and his family being summoned by the Enforcement Directorate, which has registered a money laundering case after CBI's FIR based on the high court's directions.
Dismissed API Sachin Waze
"We don't know the facts of the statement as it is with the investigating agency. I am not in the police force but what do we say in local parlance? If the officer is talking about the No.1 of his force it has got to be the police commissioner. If you go to the Central government, the PM is referred to as No.1 and similarly in the state, the chief minister is No.1. At the district level, the SP is called No.1. Why would somebody go out of the context and call the home minister his No.1," Ghumre said.
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On Deshmukh moving the Supreme Court, Ghumre said he feels the inquiry is not justified. "The larger picture of this investigation is very opaque but we are cooperating fully with the Enforcement Directorate and we have also responded to their summons," Ghumre said.
Also read: Anil Deshmukh was my âNo. 1': Dismissed API Sachin Waze
Former Mumbai police chief Paramb Bir Singh
Deshmukh's lawyer also claimed that Waze has given an affidavit before the Chandiwal Committee that he never gave any money to Deshmukh and in fact, the former home minister had never met him in February this year. The Maharashtra government had set up a one-member panel of retired judge Kailash Uttamchand Chandiwal in March to conduct a judicial inquiry into former police commissioner Param Bir Singh's allegations made in a letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on March 20 against Anil Deshmukh.
"There is no truth in the statements given before the ED and CBI. The truth shall prevail. We have full faith in the judiciary," Ghumre added.
