'Moral cop' Dhoble to probe NSEL scam

The officer is expected to have a meeting with the key management and former board members of the NSEL

The city police’s economic offences wing (EOW) said on Wednesday that deputy commissioner Vasant Dhoble – the officer who led a crackdown across Mumbai bars and nightclubs in 2012 – will be assisting Rajvardhan Sinha, additional commissioner, in probing the National Spot Exchange (NSEL) case.

According to sources, Dhoble, who joined EOW on Tuesday evening (from the main police control room), is expected to have a meeting with the key management and former board members of NSEL and stock brokers involved.

Dhoble has a colourful past. He has been known to carry a hockey stick and enter nightclubs flouting rules. He’s also raided a house for selling liquor chocolates; he said he was only implementing the law. Inevitably, this style of implementation led to controversy. A Facebook page called ‘Dhoble - Oppressor of the Innocent Public’ was launched in 2012, which has a little over 18,000 members.

He had been suspended from service in 1989 on charges of accepting a bribe. In 1994, he was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined for a role in a custodial death. He was dismissed from the force but reinstated in 1996, after his jail sentence was dismissed by the high court.

 

Before joining the EoW, he was posted in the main police control room. Before that he was Special Service branch and the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha security.