Ambani bomb threat case: NIA arrests Sachin Vaze

New Delhi, Mar 14: Sachin Vaze, an assistant police inspector has been arrested by the National Investigation Agency.

"Sachin Vaze arrested in NIA In Case RC no. 01/2021/NIA/MUM under section 286, 465, 473, 506(2), 120 B of IPC, and 4(a)(b)(I) Explosive Substances Act 1908," an NIA statement read.

Vaze had denied that he was using the Scorpio which was in possession of Mansukh Hiran, a senior Maharashtra Anti- Terrorism Squad (ATS) official said on Thursday.

The ATS, which is probing Hiran's mysterious death, recorded Vaze's statement earlier this week, he said.

Hiran's wife had claimed that her husband had given the SUV to Vaze in November, which the Mumbai crime branch officer returned in the first week of February.

On February 25, the SUV was found near industrialist Mukesh Ambani's house in south Mumbai with explosives and a threat letter inside. Hiran had claimed that it had been stolen a week earlier, but the case got murky when he was found dead in a creek in Thane on March 5.

Vaze, accused by Hiran's wife of involvement in her husband's suspicious death, was shunted out of the Mumbai crime branch on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the investigators have yet to trace the Innova car in which the man who parked the Scorpio near Ambani's house is seen leaving the spot in CCTV footage, another official said.

Vaze was on Friday transferred from the crime intelligence unit to the special branch. Teams of the ATS and NIA, which has taken over the probe have almost identified Hiran's last location from where he disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

The agencies found a face mask and several handkerchiefs on Hiren's face when his body was pulled out of creek in Thane.