Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday opposed the transfer of Mumbai Police Crime Branch officer Sachin Vaze, saying he was being disproportionately targeted as if he were Osama Bin Laden, PTI reported.

Maharashtra home minister and Nationalist Congress Party leader Anil Deshmukh on Wednesday announced the removal of Vaze from the crime intelligence unit till the inquiry into the mysterious death of automobile parts dealer Mansukh Hiran was completed. The minister said that was essential to ensure “an impartial investigation” in the case.

Hiren was the reported owner of an SUV that was found with explosives outside Reliance Industries chairperson Mukesh Ambani’s residence in Mumbai on February 25. He was found dead near Mumbai on March 5.

Thackeray said that authorities were unnecessarily dragging Vaze’s name into the controversy. The Nationalist Congress Party and Thackeray’s Shiv Sena along with the Congress run a coalition government in Maharashtra.

“Sachin Vaze is not Osama Bin Laden,” the Shiv Sena leader told reporters after the end of the Budget session of the Maharashtra Assembly. “It is not right to target a person and hang him and then investigate.”

“Let the probe be over,” the chief minister added. “The guilty, whoever they are, will not be spared.”

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Thackeray also rejected Leader of Opposition and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Devendra Fadnavis’ claim that Vaze was a member of the Shiv Sena. He said the officer had joined the party in 2008 but he never renewed the membership. “Now he has nothing to do with the Shiv Sena,” he said.

The chief minister further rejected the allegations made by the Bharatiya Janata Party that Mumbai police were investigating Dadra Nagar and Haveli MP Mohan Delkar’s alleged suicide in the city last month to deflect attention from Vaze’s complicity in the case.

“The FIR in the Delkar case was filed after a complaint was received from his family members,” he said. “We are not indulging in politics.”

The case so far

Twenty gelatin sticks were recovered from a black Scorpio found less than two kilometres from Ambani’s multi-storey home Antilia on February 25. The police had said that the gelatin recovered from the car was the commercial type that is used in mining and construction.

The police then located Mansukh Hiren, who was the SUV’s registered owner. He told the police that his car broke down on February 16, after which he parked it on the Mulund-Airoli Link Road. He alleged that the vehicle was stolen from there.

Hiren’s body was recovered from a creek near Mumbai last week. The police said that he died by suicide. The Opposition said that Mansukh Hiren’s death was suspicious and demanded that the case be transferred to the National Investigation Agency.

The Maharashtra ATS filed a murder case on March 8. However, the case was taken over by the National Investigation Agency. Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said that there was something “fishy” about the NIA taking over the investigation into the bomb threat. Deshmukh had also clarified on Monday that the state ATS will alone investigate the death of the reported owner of the explosives-laden car.