SUV bomb scare: Former encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma, 2 others sent to NIA custody

Pradeep Sharma. File pic

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday arrested former encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma after conducting a raid at his residence in connection with the SUV bomb scare case and Mansukh Hiran murder case. Two more accused identifed as Manish Soni and Satish Motekari sent have been nabbed by the NIA.

His role is suspected in both cases and he has been grilled by NIA multiple times. An NIA team swooped at his home in Andheri and carried out searches. He will be produced before the NIA Special Court.

Sharma was not at his Andheri residence when the NIA team reached. According to sources, he was nabbed from his farmhouse in Aamby Valley. He went underground after the arrest of his close aid Santosh Shelar. Along with Sharma, two more accused have been arrested by the NIA.

All the three accused have been granted NIA custody till June 28 by the NIA special court.

According to sources, suspended API Sachin Waze was very close to Sharma, from whom the agency wants clarity on certain circumstantial evidence. The NIA had found that from March 1 to 4, the period during which the conspiracy to kill Hiran was hatched, Waze met Sharma.

The SIM card through which Hiran was called via WhatsApp on March 4, was last active in Andheri, where Sharma lives.

Sources had confirmed that on March 2, Sharma visited the office of Mumbai's Commissioner of Police and is suspected to have met Waze and another senior officer there.

Sharma joined the state police in 1983 as a sub-inspector was given his first posting in Mumbai police commissionerate. He carved out a name for himself in the force for allegedly killing the ganglords in Mumbai.

Sharma once headed the Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU). Before his arrest, Waze was allegedly running his shop from CIU office where he would call restaurant and bar owners to cough up money for the smooth running of their business.

Another controversial character Sharma's gun-toting career began sliding in August 2008 after the Intelligence Bureau tapped his phone conversation with the Dawood Ibrahim's henchman Chhota Shakeel. This led to his dismissal. Sharma then moved the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal and was reinstated on May 7, 2009.

Eight months later, Sharma was arrested for his alleged role in the fake encounter of gangster Ramnarayan Gupta, alias Lakhan Bhaiyya, a close aide of Chhota Rajan, in 2006. Lakhan Bhaiyya was abducted by 17 people, including 14 cops and was gunned down at Versova.

One among the policemen involved in the killing was Vinayak Shinde, who was among the 13 cops handed a life sentence in the case. Sharma was acquitted for lack of evidence.

Shinde's name resurfaced recently following Waze's arrest in the SUV bomb scare case and the murder of Thane businessman Mansukh Hiran.

Considered a blue-eyed boy of former Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh, Sharma was back in the force in 2017. He joined the Thane Anti Extortion Cell which was then headed by Singh.

Sharma soon hit the national headlines after he arrested Dawood's brother Iqbal Kaskar. Two years later, he took voluntary retirement to contest the assembly polls from Nalasopara as a Shiv Sena candidate. He lost to Bahujan Vikas Aghadi's Kshitij Thakur by over 40,000 votes.

Waze and Sharma's careers bear uncanny similarities. Like his mentor, Waze too was a close confidant of Singh. Waze got back to the force 16 years after he was suspended for allegedly being involved in a custodial killing. Waze was also a part of the same political party as Sharma for some time.