It may also be recalled that one of the people that the CIU had arrested under Waze’s leadership was Republic TV Editor Arnab Goswami, who had, since the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, been continuously attacking Singh, who was then the police chief.Singh was also the target of a sustained hate campaign on Twitter, which included hundreds of tweets using the vilest and foulest language.While every case by the CIU received widespread attention and often a lot of applause, what seems to have gone unnoticed is that Waze was reinstated on the grounds of staff shortage due to the pandemic.Former Maharashtra Director General of Police Praveen Dixit said, “No matter what the circumstances of his reinstatement, he should have only been used for the purpose that was stated while his suspension was revoked.”K Subramaniam, also a former DGP of the state, however opined that this pointed to Waze’s reinstatement being politically-motivated. “Why else would an officer be reinstated citing COVID-19 and never be used for pandemic related duties?” he asked.A day after Singh’s ‘letter bomb’ against former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh in March 2020, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Chief Sharad Pawar, too, had stated in a press conference that the decision to reinstate Waze was taken by Singh and not anyone else.Singh’s letter, in which he had made allegations of gross corruption against Deshmukh, is also relevant here because, several months after writing the letter, Singh had gone on to tell the Chandiwal Commission that he had no evidence to back up his claim.Further, Assistant Commissioner of Police Sanjay Patil whom Singh had named in his letter had also told the Commission that Deshmukh never told him to extort any money from bars and restaurants, taking the fizz out of Singh’s much-hyped claim.It now remains to be seen whether Singh is able to produce any evidence to back up his latest claim, or if it once again turns out to be a random statement made with full knowledge of the number of eyeballs it would grab as soon as it was made public.
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