Khwaja Yunus case: Ex-cop Sachin Waze ready to spill all for pardon

In a new twist to the Khwaja Yunus case prime accused former cop Sachin Waze on Monday filed an application asking for pardon in return for turning approver Waze and three other policemen stand accused of murder in the custodial death of Parbhanibased techie Khwaja YunusIn his application Waze wrote ldquoI have decided to stick to my selfconscience sic and thus I wish to make full and true disclosure within my knowledge relative to the offence and to every other person concerned whether as a principal or abettor in the commission thereofrdquoYunus was arrested as a suspect in the December 2002 Ghatkopar bomb blast case which killed two However in January 2003 it was claimed that he had ldquoescapedrdquo when the jeep in which he was being taken to Aurangabad had an accident He was then said to have ldquodisappearedrdquoFormer police officer Sachin Waze on March 9 2004 File picWaze who along with three other cops was escorting Yunus had filed an FIR to this effect But a courtordered investigation by the CID into his ldquodisappearancerdquo alleged that Yunus then just 27 years old had been murdered in custody and his dead body had then been disposed of by Waze and three othersFourteen cops were indicted but the Maharashtra government sanctioned prosecution only of the four who were supposedly escorting him to Aurangabad These were Waze and constables Rajendra Tiwari Rajaram Nikam and Sunil Desai A petition to include the remaining cops is pending in the Supreme CourtHowever in his approver application Waze suggests that he had no idea that the person handed over to him was Yunus ldquoI joined the investigation only on January 6 and I did not have any mechanism to verify the identity of the arrested terrorists The terrorist Khwaja Yunus as appears in the photo in the case papers as well as in the newspapers was never handed over to merdquoYunus was allegedly assaulted in custody on January 6 2003 Waze filed the FIR on January 7 2003ldquoThere is more here than meets the eyerdquo said senior counsel Mihir Desai who has been fighting the case on behalf of Yunusrsquo mother ldquoIf what he says now is true why did he name Khwaja Yunus in the FIR filed by him This case is now 20 years old All this time he has claimed the person was Khwaja YunusrdquoIt may be noted that Waze and his fellow accused have made innumerable applications to delay the trial which only began in January 2018 It however came to a standstill immediately after the first witness Dr Abdul Mateen also an accused in the Ghatkopar blast case deposedMateen had deposed that he had seen four policemenmdashACP Praful Bhosale Inspector Hemant Desai Senior Police Inspector Rajaram Vhanmane and Police Inspector Ashok Khot assaulting Yunus on January 6 2003 inside the Ghatkopar Crime Branch unit till he collapsed He was not seen alive after thatWaze and his three coaccused were not named by Mateen After Mateenrsquos deposition the then Special Public Prosecutor PP DU Mirajkar had filed an application asking that the cops named by Mateen be named as additional accused Immediately after that Mirajkar was dismissed and the trial came to a standstillIt emerged later that the government was not happy with Mirajkarrsquos application and wanted him to withdraw it In September 2022 the trial court allowed the PP appointed after Mirajkarrsquos dismissal Pradeep Gharat to withdraw the petition A petition challenging this is pending in the High Court The trial courtrsquos order effectively meant that Waze and his three coaccused remain the only accused in the case