Sachin Waze has taken NCP (SP) politician Jayant Patil’s name in the case of former home minister Anil Deshmukh using Waze to extort money from orchestra bars.

MUMBAI/NAGPUR/PUNE: Dismissed police inspector Sachin Waze, currently in jail in a murder case, has taken NCP (SP) politician Jayant Patil‘s name in the case of former home minister Anil Deshmukh using Waze to extort money from orchestra bars.
Waze said that in a letter addressed to BJP leader and state home minister Devendra Fadnavis, he has mentioned Patil’s name.Speaking to the media in Nagpur, Fadnavis said, “I have not read Waze’s letter. I learned about it through media reports. If Waze indeed sent such a letter, its authenticity will be verified, and an investigation will follow.” Jayant Patil said, “Nowadays, a person in jail is also giving an interview. There are serious allegations against him (Waze), I don’t think I need to reply to him.”
Waze spoke to the media on Friday when a police team was escorting him from court to jail. The case was back in the news recently after Anil Deshmukh claimed that Fadnavis attempted to pressure him into filing false affidavits against then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, his son Aaditya, then deputy CM Ajit Pawar, and former minister Anil Parab three years ago.

In 2021, during the tenure of the MVA govt led by Uddhav Thackeray, the then Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh alleged that then home minister Anil Deshmukh had asked Waze to collect Rs 100 crore from orchestra bars in Mumbai for him. Singh made the allegation after Deshmukh shunted him from the police commissioner’s post following the Antilia bomb scare and Mansukh Hiran murder case controversy, which led to Waze’s arrest in the case by NIA.
In Nagpur, Deshmukh, after sharing the dias with Fadnavis at the inauguration of the state planning commission building on Saturday, denied these accusations, pointing out that Bombay High Court had granted him bail and explicitly stated that Waze’s testimony was unreliable due to his criminal background. “The high court observed that Waze, involved in murder, is of a criminal disposition and his statements cannot be relied upon,” Deshmukh asserted, questioning Fadnavis’s judgment in using Waze’s claims against him. The former home minister went on to accuse Fadnavis of orchestrating the plot in retaliation for his recent expose.
In Nashik, BJP leader Girish Mahajan asked Deshmukh to reveal what evidence he had in a pen drive (Deshmukh had claimed he had proof of what Fadnavis was up to). “We had a pen drive that we exhibited in the state assembly. Now if you (Deshmukh) have anything, then reveal it,” Mahajan challenged. Mahajan further claimed that Deshmukh had tried to frame him in a case by exerting pressure on the then SP of Jalgaon. “I met Deshmukh to ascertain the reasons but to no avail,” said Mahajan.
NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule questioned the timing of Waze’s statement as the assembly election in the state is approaching and said, “Which Jayant Patil he is talking about we don’t know… dirty politics being played out in Maharashtra. See the timing of the letter, why he is writing it now because they (the ruling party) are afraid of our senior leader, so they are now behind them.”