Four corporators accused in Parmar suicide case surrender

Thane: Four corporators accused of abetting the suicide of builder Suraj Parmar on Saturday surrendered before police here in accordance with the directions issued by the Bombay High Court, which refused their anticipatory bail pleas earlier this week.

The four corporators - Vikrant Chavan (Congress), Najib Mulla, Hanumant Jagdale (both NCP) and Sudhakar Chavan (independent) walked into the office of Investigating Officer ACP Dileep R Gore of the Vartak Nagar division and surrendered themselves around 9 am.

On December 1, the corporators had sought time to surrender before police and had withdrawn their bail petitions after being denied relief by Justice Ajey Gadkari.

Also, they were directed to surrender before the concerned police in Thane on December 5.

The four corporators had approached the High Court in November seeking pre-arrest bail after a sessions court in Thane rejected their plea for the same.

The High Court had on November 3 granted the four interim protection from arrest and posted their petitions for final hearing.

Parmar, a leading builder, had shot himself on October 7. His suicide note alleged that a nexus of corporators and officials was harassing him for bribes.

Thane Police had registered a case of abetment of suicide under the IPC and 'criminal misconduct' under the Prevention of Corruption Act as the suicide note allegedly named these four corporators.

According to police, the process of placing them under arrest was in progress at the ACP office after which they would be produced before a court for police remand for interrogation.

Meanwhile, police has found one more vital document related to income tax raids in 2014 on COSMOS group of builders headed by Parmar.

The document, which is in possession of Thane police, revealed financial transactions of donations for elections made to corporators and political leaders with jotted down amounts. It is also said to contain details of payments made to different departments of Thane Municipal Corporation including the Town Development Department and the PWD, the total of all which comes upto around Rs 19 crores.

The document contains names of some of the beneficiaries in full, some nick names and some initials as well, adding upto eight persons.

The police is now trying to decipher the information in the document and hopes that some more political skeletons may tumble out as the custodial interrogation progresses.

Earlier, Public Prosecutor Raja Thakare, while opposing the bail pleas of the corporators, had told the court that the police needs custodial interrogation of the four accused to ascertain financial transactions.

Thakare also told the court that one of the accused had transferred over Rs one crore to the account of an NCP MLA and all this needs to be thoroughly probed.