The bureaucrat said it appeared that both the CM and state home minister Anil Deshmukh (of NCP) had not taken the disclosures as seriously as they should have, resulting in an embarrassment not only for Thackeray but also for NCP chief Sharad Pawar, the architect of the MVA government.
Initially, Deshmukh, who has been blamed for inept handling of the situation, entrusted the probe to the state Anti-Terrorism Squad led by Jaijeet Singh.
Later, after Thane businessman Mansukh Hiran’s body was found in a Thane creek, when Fadnavis made sensational disclosures about call data records pertaining to Waze and Hiran, which showed the two were in touch, the NIA stepped in and took over the probe into the explosives case.