SIT re-arrests Pankaja Munde’s PA, siblings secure pre-arrest bail

A sessions court has granted anticipatory bail to the brother and sister of the PA, whose dentist wife was found dead in their Worli home under suspicious circumstances

MUMBAI: A Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Mumbai police on Monday re-arrested the personal assistant of state environment minister Pankaja Munde, who the police had taken back in their custody to complete their investigations. The SIT produced him before the metropolitan magistrate court in Bhoiwada and secured his custody up to December 18. Meanwhile a sessions court has granted anticipatory bail to the brother and sister of the PA, whose dentist wife was found dead in their Worli home under suspicious circumstances.

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On December 4, after the family members of the deceased dentist met chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and expressed their dissatisfaction with the probe being conducted by the Worli police, Mumbai police commissioner Deven Bharti formed the SIT helmed by deputy commissioner of police R Ragasudha.

A senior police officer who is part of the SIT said that after studying the case, the team found “several suspicious aspects”. “We want to question the arrested accused on these,” he said. “After those aspects are dealt with, we will decide the further course of action. We also told the court that there were discrepancies in the statements of the accused and we still needed to arrest his sister and brother.”

Advocate Mangesh Deshmukh, appearing for the minister’s PA, said the SIT team told the court that they were given the responsibility for the investigations recently and wanted to question the accused. “The court had given them four days’ custody and they sought five,” he said. “We didn’t oppose it.”

Meanwhile, the sessions court on Monday granted pre-arrest bail to the siblings of the PA on their executing a personal bond of ₹25,000 each with one surety of the same amount. The relief was granted on the condition that they would make themselves available for interrogation as and when required by the investigating officer and cooperate in the investigation till the filing of the charge-sheet.

“We pointed out that the siblings were government servants and had no role in the abetment to suicide of the dentist,” advocate Deshmukh said, adding that the court accepted the submission and allowed the anticipatory bail pleas. The police had opposed the pleas, contending that they were still investigating the PA’s claim that he climbed from the 29th-floor refuge area to his 30th-floor flat to check on his wife after she did not take his calls.

According to the FIR, the deceased had sent some photographs and documents to her father on September 29, including a consent letter and declaration from a pregnant woman in a Latur hospital, dated November 16, 2021, wherein Munde’s PA was named as her husband. The deceased had told her father that her husband’s siblings knew about his affair, and her sister-in-law had told her that if she did not accept it, she would arrange for her brother’s second marriage, the FIR said.

The minister’s PM and the dentist got married on February 7 this year. On November 22, the dentist was found hanging inside her flat.