Two cops booked for not probing Bangladeshi woman who forged documents

(From left) ADG-rank officer Deven Bharti, former ACP Deepak Phatangde and BJP’s Maharashtra secretary Hyder Azam

The Malwani police in Malad have booked ADG-rank officer Deven Bharti and former assistant police commissioner Deepak Phatangde for shielding a Bangladeshi woman who used forged documents to get Indian citizenship. The woman, Reshma Khan, wife of BJP's Maharashtra secretary Hyder Azam, has also been named in the FIR and is currently untraceable. The duo have been booked on charges of forgery, cheating and various other Sections of IPC and the Passports Act.

The Mumbai Crime Branch recorded Azam's statement on Friday. The politician said he had no knowledge that she had forged documents. According to his statement, they got married at a friend's home in Delhi in 2014, and after returning to Mumbai, Azam was living with his first wife while Khan lived at her Malad residence. "I used to speak to her on the phone, and met her last week at her home.

Thereafter, we had no interaction," he told officers. The Crime Branch is investigating the case based on a report that Maharashtra Director General of Police (DGP) Sanjay Pandey submitted to the state government in August 2020, when he was DG, Home Guard. The Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) of Mumbai Crime Branch found the allegations to be true. It registered an FIR at Malwani police station on Thursday and took over the case for further probe. The complainant in the matter is retired senior police inspector Deepak Kurulkar, who was posted at Special Branch of Mumbai police.

In his statement, Kurulkar told police that during his tenure between 2015 and November 2017, he got the details of a suspected passport granted to one Reshma Khan following a no-objection certificate from I unit of the Special Branch of Mumbai police. While going through the birth certificate, he got suspicious and sent his officers to North 24 Parganas in West Bengal for verification, and learnt that the health department that no such birth certificate in the name of Reshma Khan existed in their record, the officer stated.

Kurulkar stated that Phatangde, the then inspector of Malwani police station, was not ready to register an FIR. Phatangde told Kurulkar that Bharti, the then joint commissioner of police (Law and Order) had instructed not to file any case, according to the statement. "A few days later, Bharti called me to his office... He told me not to dig more into the Reshma Khan matter or else there will be a problem."

According to the statement, Kurulkar filed an RTI in November 2020, post his retirement, seeking documents he had given to Malwani police for filing for the FIR. However, he was informed that the documents were destroyed in 2018. "It appears that the documents related to the suspicious Bangladeshi national were destroyed intentionally by Phatangde and others," Kurulkar stated. The complainant alleged he was being pressured by Bharti. "We are investigating the matter and will verify each and everything. One point is established that the passport was procured based on fraudulent documents," said a Crime Branch officer.

They are also looking into the allegations against Bharti, currently posted at Maharashtra Security Corporation. Officers said Kurulkar's allegations are serious in nature, but there is no documentary evidence that he gave instruction to Phatangde to not register an FIR. Police are probing if Phatangde informed his superiors about the instruction.

"The case is false and politically motivated. We will fight this legally," Azam told mid-day when contacted, Phatangde said, "Since I have not seen the FIR it won't be proper for me to comment on this." Bharti was not available for comment.