Mumbai police to apply MCOCA in triple murder case

MUMBAI: In its first kind of move the Borivli police have moved an application before the Mumbai police commissioner Satyapal Singh seeking sanction to book Gopal Pandey and his five aides under the stringent act of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
While the joint commissioner (law and Order) Sadanand Date have already sanctioned the Borivli police's application, the police are now awaiting Singh's sanction before invoking the stringent act.While seeking the sanction the Borivli police have cited reasons like the accused have criminal background, are organized and have committed the crime for pecuniary gain etc. Additional commissioner of police (North Region) Sunil Paraskar confirmed and said,Its is not proper for me to comment on it as the accused will get alert. I will only say that it is a fit case for MCOCA.''
Sources said normally the crime branch invokes the stringent act as the investigations needs a dedicated teams and hard work as compared the local police station which is always busy with routine duties.
In June this year the crime branch had arrested six persons including Pandey in connection with the kidnapping and murder of a builder, Nitin Dhakan, 46. After the murder, the accused allegedly shopped using Dhakan's debit card and even stole cash from his house. The six arrested are Gopal Pande, 45, Brajesh Mishra, 33, Abhijit Bhosale, 24, Birbal Singh, 37, Haroon Sheikh, 35, and Sachin Chorge, 28.
During the interrogation of Gopal Pandey, the prime accused told police that in April this year he kidnap and murder case of Borivli-based builder Nitin Dhakan over a property dispute. Dhakan's brother Kishorebhai had registered a case of kidnapping at Borivli police station. When the police went through call records on Dhakan's cell phone they found Pande's number. Police found that on April 30, Pande had called Dhakan and after the kidnapping his cell phone location showed Virar.
All six have been booked under IPC sections 302 (murder), 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder), 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent, secretly and wrongfully), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), 120 (B) (punishment of criminal conspiracy) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of the IPC.