Mumbai Police Commissioner, Param Bir Singh’s Association with the “Disappearance” of Dilip Patidar as Maharashtra ATS Boss

Is ATS Protecting Terror Groups in India at the Behest of Pakistan's ISI?

17th October, 2020

Prof. Madhu Kishwar

The much celebrated super cop Julio Ribeiro who was once the Police Commissioner of Mumbai had written an article titled "CM brings good cops in, keeps bad cops out" in the Times of India of July 5, 2018. In this he congratulated the then chief minister Devendra Fadnavis for resisting pressure to appoint Param Bir Singh and another “bad cop” as Mumbai Police Commissioner without naming either of the two “bad cops”. The other bad cop kept quiet, but Param Bir Singh let the world know that Ribeiro had referred to him as one of the two “bad cops” by writing an angry rejoinder to Ribeiro and demanding an apology for defamation. He himself ensured that his letter in which he lavished generous praise on himself, was published by most leading newspapers of India. Needless to say, Mr. Ribeiro did not apologize nor even bothered to engage with Param Bir Singh.

The fact that a luminary like Ribeiro chose to indict Param Bir Singh through a signed article in the Times of India speaks volumes. It is an open secret that Param Bir Singh is held in disdain by the honest among Maharashtra Police. I have heard from insiders that whenever a police officer has to refer to fellow cops who are outrageous in matters of corruption and crime, as Param Bir Singh is reputed to be, they often say, “अरे भाई, इतनी परमबीरी नहीं करनी चाहिए” (Buddies, our cops should not indulge in such brazen Parambiri).

All this is only to point out that the allegations of covering up the murderer of Sushant Singh Rajput or the draconian and lawless actions being taken by Param Bir Singh against editors, reporters and CEOs of Republic TV are totally in sync with his past history.

In my previous article posted on October 12, 2020 I had provided evidence of how Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh used Indiabulls Aviation Ltd as an accomplice in forcibly and illegally abducting Sudhakar Chaturvedi in order to coerce him into implicating himself and others like Col. Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya in the Malegaon blasts case of 2008. Col. Purohit was at that time assigned the job of cracking the SIMI terror networks set up by the ISI in India while Sudhakar Chaturvedi was an official Army source who provided Col. Purohit information on SIMI and other Islamist networks. By arresting and brutalizing both Col. Purohit and Chaturvedi, Maharashtra ATS led by Param Bir Singh and Hemant Karkare effectively sabotaged the Military Intelligence operation against SIMI in addition to exposing to Pakistan and the Islamist forces the entire network set up by Col. Purohit.

In this article, I bring evidence of some more heinous crimes committed by Maharashtra ATS under Param Bir Singh’s direct charge. These relate to the murder of Dilip Patidar.

Who was Dilip Patidar & why was he picked up by Maharashtra ATS? Dilip Patidar, a 28-year-old electrician working with a premier private hospital, was picked up by a Maharashtra ATS team on the intervening night of November 10-11 in 2008. He was picked up by a Maharashtra ATS unit from his home in Indore’s Shanti Vihar Colony. Dilip’s family is based Dupada village in Madhya Pradesh’s Shajapur district.

The only charge the Maharashtra ATS could come up with against Patidar is that at one point of time, he had been a tenant of Ramchandra Kalsangra, another person falsely accused by the ATS in the Malegaon blast case. According to sources in the ATS, Dilip was dragged into the Malegaon Blast case because the ATS wanted to blackmail Dilip into giving ATS a tutored testimony against Kalsangra and others which Dilip resisted and refused.

(In the above picture, Dilip Patidar's grief stricken wife and son hold his photograph with an appeal for justice)

In sheer desperation, Dilip’s family had filed a habeas corpus petition before the Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court in December 2008. The Indore bench directed the CBI to probe Dilip’s disappearance. CBI finished the investigations and found Maharashtra ATS officers Rajan Ghule and Ramesh More responsible for his disappearance.

A Special CBI judge Raghvendra Singh Chouhan had also held later that prima facie there is evidence against Ghule and More for their prosecution for criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, fabrication of evidence and other offences under the IPC.

All along the Maharashtra ATS has been using its clout through the Godfather of all mafias in Maharashtra - namely Sharad Pawar - who in turn has been using his influence to scuttle action against the two guilty cops. The statutory permission to prosecute Ghule and More was to come from the office of the Governor of Maharashtra who obliged Pawar by denying permission for prosecution.

Incidentally Param Bir Singh’s blue-eyed boy ATS officer Rajan Ghule was also a passenger on the surreptitious Indiabulls charter flight which forcibly and illegally abducted Sudhakar Chaturvedi. According to ATS sources Ghule and More worked very closely with Param Bir Singh. In all likelihood Dilip was murdered in cold blood by the two under orders from “bad cop” Param Bir Singh and his body was tagged under “unidentified bodies from the 26/11 Mumbai Terror attack”.

The allegations regarding Dilip Patidar’s unaccounted disappearance without a trace are now being probed by the National Investigative Agency (NIA) as part of its overall probe of the Malegaon blasts case of 2008.