Murdered SS-UBT leader’s wife claims she was a ‘potential target’

Mumbai, March 19 (IANS) Making a chilling disclosure, Tejasvee Darekar-Ghosalkar - the widow of Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Abhishek V. Ghosalkar who was shot dead during a Facebook live show on February 8 – has claimed that she was also a potential target in the same incident, here on Tuesday.

Abhishek, one of the dynamic, educated and upcoming youth leaders of SS (UBT), was fired multiple bullets during a live interaction with his constituents on Facebook that evening by a local goon Mauris Noronha, who also committed suicide a few minutes later by shooting himself.

Tejasvee, a former corporator in the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) recalled how for that particular programme, the killer Noronha – dreaded in the neighbourhood as ‘Mauris Bhai’ – had asked her husband Abhishek to bring her along.

“He (Norona) had asked my husband to take me for that evening public event, and Abhishek had even asked me to accompany him. However, as I got delayed, Abhishek called me and suggested that I should directly go to attend another event scheduled later that evening,” said Tejasvee.

“This means that even I was a target in the conspiracy hatched to eliminate Abhishek… However, I got the call to go for the next function… It’s my children’s good fortune that I could not reach the (Noronha) program,” said Tejasvee.

Her briefing was attended by MPs Arvind Sawant, Anil Desai, MLAs Anil Parab and Vilas Potnis, ex-mayors Kishori Pednekar and Vishakha Raut, plus other SS (UBT) leaders and office-bearers.

In her statement, she alleged that the Mumbai Police do not seem to be probing her husband’s murder case properly and even the Mumbai Sessions Court has made certain observations in this regard on March 5.

These are: prima facie, Noronha was handed the gun used in the murder; the deceased Noronha along with his (arrested) personal security guard Amrendra Mishra had gone together to buy the bullets; Mishra was fully aware of the rivalry between Noronha and Abhishek Ghosalkar; Noronha had kept Mishra’s gun licence in his custody; and, the locker from where the gun was retrieved was intact, indicating Noronha had access to it when needed.

Tejasvee pointed out that she had raised similar issues with the Mumbai Police in a letter and demanded that IPC Sec. 34 and Sec. 120B, but her plea apparently went unheeded.

Against this background, she said her lawyer Bhushan Mahadik will soon file a writ petition in the Bombay High Court seeking that investigations into murder of Abhishek Ghosalkar, 40, by the local goon Noronha, 52 – and the latter’s subsequent suicide – should be taken away from the Mumbai Police and entrusted to another probe agency.

The sensational killing of Abhishek Ghosalkar created shockwaves in state political circles with leaders across party lines condemning it, and now the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi allies are likely to exploit it politically in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: [email protected])