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The National Investigation Agency on Thursday administered searches at the residence of former Mumbai Police cop Pradeep Sharma within the Antilia bomb scare case and connected the murder case of businessman Mansukh Hiran.
A team of NIA reached the residence of Pradeep Sharma in Mumbai’s Andheri (east) area on Thursday morning and initiated an enquiry operation. consistent with sources, Sharma was present inside his house when the officials were conducting searches.
Pradeep Sharma, referred to as an encounter specialist, was questioned twice earlier by NIA officials in reference to the case. He’s known to be on the brink of former Mumbai Police cop Sachin Vaze, who has been arrested by the central agency because the main conspirator in both cases.
Pradeep Sharma joined Mumbai Police as sub-inspector in 1983 and has been involved in over 300 encounters associated with the Mumbai underworld, out of which, 113 shootouts are in his name. He took voluntary retirement in 2019 to join Shiv Sena. He stood as a candidate for Maharashtra Assembly elections from the Nala Sopara seat on a Shiv Sena ticket and lost.
After the arrest of Sachin Vaze and Vinayak Shinde within the Ambani bomb scare case, the NIA was looking into the links between both accused and Pradeep Sharma. The friendship between Pradeep Sharma, Sachin Vaze, and constable Vinayak Shinde was known to several within the Mumbai police . Vaze and Sharma met for the primary time at the Mumbai Police Commissioner’s office and have become good friends.
On Wednesday, the NIA had arrested two more persons within the case associated with the recovery of an explosives-laden SUV from outside the south Mumbai residence of industrialist Mukesh Ambani in February this year. The duo, Santosh Shelar and Anand Jadhav, were produced before a special court which remanded them to NIA police custody till summer solstice for further investigation.
Shelar and Jadhav are under the radar for his or her alleged role within the murder of Thane-based businessman Mansukh Hiran, who purportedly owned the SUV found outside Ambani’s residence Antilia on February 25. Hiran’s body was found in a creek in Thane on March 5.