In a new revelation, sources on Friday claimed that murder accused Vijay Palande was allegedly a trusted informer, who tipped off the police on one of underworld gangster Santosh Shetty’s henchmen.
According to sources, a particular inspector had asked the local police to go slow on murder accused Palande, because he was an informer and not because he was a “relative”, as reported by a newspaper earlier.
After jumping parole in 2006, Palande had gone to Bangkok, where he joined Shetty’s gang. “In February last year, Bhadresh Shah, a childhood friend of Shetty — who used to extort people — was arrested from the Mumbai airport by the crime branch. It was later revealed that Palande had tipped off the inspector. Shah was an important catch as he was involved in the kidnapping of a marble dealer from Jaipur,” said a source.
Meanwhile, the crime branch officers have come across a rape case registered in Delhi, where deceased Karan Kakkar who was killed by Palande, was made a witness. “In 2010, a model has lodged a complaint of rape against businessman Umesh Agarwal at Greater Kailash police station. However, Agarwal in his anticipatory bail application had stated that it was Kakkar who had supplied the woman to him,” said a crime branch officer.
When contacted, inspector Ramkishan of the Delhi police, an investigating officer in the case, said that Kakkar was only a witness in the case.