The circumstances surrounding the death of Mumbai Police Constable Vishal Pawar have taken a startling turn as investigations by the Dadar Government Railway Police (GRP) debunked his initial claims of a robbery. According to GRP officials, Pawar fabricated the robbery story, and instead, evidence suggests a tragic sequence of events involving alcohol consumption and health complications. Contrary to Pawar's account, the GRP probe traced his activities on the fateful day. It revealed , Pawar did not go to work, visited two bars, and had drinks, spent the night on the platform, and went back home the next morning. As his health deteriorated, he got admitted to Thane civil hospital. At the hospital, he gave a false statement to the police about what happened with him on the basis of which the Kopri police registered an FIR, a GRP officer added.
As per a Indian Express report, Pawar was an alcoholic, who sold his ring to buy drinks at a country bar in Matunga on April 28 as he ran of money. Contrary to Pawar’s robbery story, the Dadar Government Railway Police’s probe revealed that on the night of April 27, he went to a bar in Dadar (east) and after having a drink, he walked over a 2km stretch from Dadar to Parel railway station and slept there overnight. Later, he had drinks with his nephew Nilesh at Thane and then went back home.A police officer, who is a part of the probe, on Saturday told The Indian Express that they have found that besides having drinks at bars in Dadar and Thane, Pawar also had drinks in Matunga. “On Sunday morning, he boarded a train from Parel to Matunga. At Matunga, he visited Sai country bar at 10.07am. Since he had no money, he sold his silver ring and paid the money for drinks. He then boarded a train for Thane,” said a Dadar GRP officer.Police have also recorded statements of Pawar’s colleagues from Worli Local Arms division-3, who said Pawar was an alcoholic and that he used to drink daily. Police have also obtained his bank transaction details of the past one year, which shows a high number of payment transactions at wine shops.
According to police, Pawar studied till Class 12 and had taken a personal loan of Rs 5 lakh for some family work. “Police suspect that given his alcohol addiction, Pawar perhaps had sensed that he was soon going to die and that if he died because of his alcohol addiction, his family will be defamed and may not get compensatory benefits. Hence, he may have decided to cook up a robbery story,” said a source in the police. “He had a recent medical history of jaundice due to alcohol. He suffered a cardiac arrest while undergoing treatment at the hospital and doctors also found his urine output had stopped. We strongly suspect that excessive consumption of alcohol may have caused multiple organ failure, that triggered a cardiac arrest when he was at the hospital. The stoppage of his urine output suggests kidney failure. The final chemical analysis at the forensic lab will give a conclusive opinion about the cause of his death,” said the first GRP officer. According to police, Pawar had been having fights with his wife lately but the reasons are still unknown. The police would soon call upom his wife to record her statement.
Pawar was admitted to Civil hospital in Thane on April 29. At the hospital, he told Thane’s Kopri police that on April 27, when he was going to his work place in Byculla from his home, his phone was robbed between Matunga and Sion stations by some gang members. The thieves later also injected some poisonous substance into his body. Pawar had claimed that after lying unconscious for hours alongside the railway track, he somehow boarded a train from Matunga station and returned back home. He was admitted to the Civil Hopsital after his health deteriorated. On May 1, he died at the hospital during treatment. On May 1, when Dadar GRP got the handover of the case from Kopri police for further investigation, they checked the CCTV footage of various railway stations based on Pawar’s mobile phone location and found that he had cooked up the entire robbery story. Under GRP Commissioner Ravindra Shisve’s guidance, DCP (CR) Manoj Patil supervised the entire investigation headed by ACP Sunil Gaonkar and Dadar GRP senior inspector Anil Kadam.