Param Bir Singh: Malegaon blast cop who's the king of controversies

It is one thing to be an IPS officer, but quite another to serve in power hubs like Delhi or Mumbai, where policing overlaps with politics, influence, and intense scrutiny. Few officers understand this better than Param Bir Singh, the former Mumbai Police Commissioner and the ex-Director General of the Maharashtra Home Guard. It's been three years since Singh retired, but he is back in the news again, this time because of his role as one of the investigating officers in the 2008 Malegaon blast case.

Singh's 34-year-long career has been marked by both high-profile postings, cases, and a slew of controversies that followed.

A special NIA court in Mumbai acquitted all seven accused on Thursday. But the layers of the investigation are coming to light.

A day after the verdict was announced, retired ATS officer Mehboob Mujawar told India Today TV that Singh, then Assistant Commissioner of Police, had ordered the arrest of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in connection with the case.

Another explosive detail emerged when one of the 39 witnesses, Milind Joshirao, told the court that Singh, who was then an ACP, and Deputy Commissioner Shrirao had threatened him with torture and coerced him into naming Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and other RSS functionaries.

Singh had held several important positions in his career before, but it was the Malegaon blast case that first brought him into the public eye. Now, with the verdict finally delivered, insider details are emerging, bringing the focus back on the controversial former top cop.

WHO IS FORMER MUMBAI TOP COP PARAM BIR SINGH

Born in Chandigarh in 1964, Param Bir Singh graduated from Punjab University in 1983 before joining the Indian Police Service in 1988.

As an IPS officer, Singh has held some of the most prominent positions in Maharashtra – like Police Commissioner of Thane, Superintendent of Police in the Maoist belt of Chandrapur and Bhandara, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Detection) in Mumbai, Additional Commissioner of Police in North-West Region in Mumbai, Additional Commissioner of Police in Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), and the Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order).

Singh retired from service in June 2022, and was appointed the executive director of Mumbai’s famed Lilavati Hospital in July last year.

ANTILIA BOMB SCARE, PROCLAIMED OFFENDER, AND AN ABSCONDING TOP COP

Singh was already a well-known cop by the late 2010s, with several high-profile cases to his name. But it was his 2021 clash with the state government that kept him in the headlines.

The case involved an SUV laden with 20 gelatin sticks, found on Carmichael Road in South Mumbai, parked near the residence of business tycoon Mukesh Ambani.

Singh was then the Police Commissioner of Mumbai. It was just a year earlier, in February 2020, that Singh was appointed Mumbai's top cop.

He held the role until March 2021, when he was moved by Maharashtra's then-Home Minister Anil Deshmukh to the home guards wing as Director General for lapses in the probe of the Antilia bomb scare case.

Seemingly provoked by this, Singh, in turn, wrote to then-Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray accusing Deshmukh that he had asked police officers, including the now-dismissed Assistant Police Inspector (API) Sachin Vaze, to collect Rs 100 crore, including Rs 40-50 crore each month from 1,750 bars and restaurants in Mumbai.

It must be noted that Vaze is currently in the custody of the NIA for his alleged involvement in the Antilia bomb case and the murder of Mansukh Hiren. It was Hiren's car that was found outside Ambani's house, one he had reported stolen the previous week. A week later, Hiren was found dead in a creek in Mumbai.

While speaking to PTI last year, Singh again reiterated the claim, alleging, "The Rs 100 crore collection target was for Mumbai city for which my officers were pressured. The target for the rest of the state was different."

But what followed Singh’s letter to Thackeray appeared to be a full-blown confrontation between the top cop and the state government.

Following Singh's claim in 2021, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a money-laundering case against Anil Deshmukh and arrested him for allegedly obtaining illegal gratification.

And soon after Singh's letter to Thackeray, at least five extortion cases against Singh surfaced in Maharashtra.

In November 2021, a magistrate court in Mumbai declared Singh a "proclaimed offender" in connection with one of the extortion cases – a first for a Mumbai police commissioner. The court also declared Singh an "absconding accused" in the extortion case, as he had remained out of public view since being removed from his post as Mumbai’s police commissioner.

He only reappeared two days after the Supreme Court granted him protection from arrest, while ordering him to cooperate in the investigation.

However, he was suspended in December 2021 for "indiscipline and other irregularities".

Apart from the extortion cases, Singh also faced a departmental inquiry in the Antilia bomb scare case for allegedly revoking, or causing the revocation of, Sachin Vaze's suspension.

PARAM BIR SINGH HAD THE LAST LAUGH IN ANTILIA CASE

However, in 2023, the Maharashtra government, then led by Eknath Shinde, dropped all charges against Singh and revoked his December 2021 suspension order.

The government cited a Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order that said the suspension order lapsed because the government did not review it in time.

Although he retired on June 30, 2022, the period from the day he was suspended (December 12, 2021 to June 30, 2022) was treated as him being "on duty".

MORE ABOUT PARAM BIR SINGH AND HIS HIGH-PROFILE CAREER

Param Bir Singh entered the limelight over the arrest of BJP member Pragya Singh Thakur and Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit, who are now acquitted by the special NIA court.

But he was at the helm of multiple high-profile investigations.

For instance, he oversaw the probe into the Television Rating Points (TRP) scam, which exposed alleged manipulations in audience measurement systems by certain TV channels to inflate viewership numbers through paid households.

The probe implicated at least three channels in the scam. Singh drew flak from a national news channel for holding a press conference on the case.

He also led the investigation into the Anvay Naik suicide case, involving the death of an interior designer who left a note accusing media figures of non-payment, and the high-profile case of Hindi film industry actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death.

Earlier in his career, as Additional Commissioner of Police, Singh countered terrorists during the 26/11 Mumbai attacks at the Oberoi Trident hotel. He was working alongside then-ATS chief Hemant Karkare, who had led the investigation into the 2008 Malegaon blasts and was killed in the line of duty during the Mumbai attacks.

However, despite his role in the 26/11 attacks, a grave allegation surfaced against him.

Around the time Singh was being investigated in multiple extortion cases, retired Assistant Police Commissioner Samsher Khan Pathan alleged that Singh had "destroyed" a mobile phone seized from 26/11 terror convict Mohammed Ajmal Kasab. According to Pathan, the phone was a crucial piece of evidence and should have been handed over to Ramesh Mahale, the investigating officer in the case. Instead, Singh allegedly disposed of it without explanation.

There were no subsequent developments regarding the allegation.

As the Police Commissioner of Thane, his efforts included the arrest of Iqbal Kaskar, brother of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, and the busting of a Rs 2,000 crore drug scandal with international links.

Param Bir Singh's career has been anything but ordinary.

Many have dubbed him the trouble child of the force, a man who crossed the line with the state government. But he has seen the full spectrum of public service, and remains one of the few top cops to have sustained constant media attention, while also handling a slew of high-profile cases.

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