Navi Mumbai Police Commissioner Milind Bharambe has transferred Kalamboli senior police inspector Tanaji Naranwar to the police control room after a three-day delay in registering a case involving a constable who was allegedly dragged on a car bonnet during a checkpoint in Roadpali, Panvel.
The transfer was ordered on Thursday night, according to a report by Loksatta – Navi Mumbai. The commissioner took serious note of the failure to register the case promptly and of the fact that senior officers were not informed about the incident, even after a video of the episode circulated on social media.
The incident occurred around midnight on November 8, when police personnel had established a checkpoint at Roadpali. A motorist struck constable Dilip Bhoi and then drove for some distance with him on the bonnet of the car. Bhoi was injured in the incident, the report said.
Kalamboli police had begun investigating the episode. However, the vehicle number available to investigators was only partially visible, prompting efforts to identify the driver through CCTV footage and other technical information. During the investigation, police received information that the suspected driver was in Jalgaon.
The police initially prioritised locating the driver instead of registering a case, according to the report. By November 11, the driver had not been traced. The incident came to the attention of senior police officers only after news organisations circulated the video of the constable being taken on the vehicle’s bonnet.
The commissioner’s action places the episode within a wider question of how police stations record and escalate incidents involving threats to personnel and public safety. In this case, the concerns cited against Naranwar were not limited to the delay in filing the case; they also included the failure to communicate the incident to senior officers.
The report did not specify the sections under which a case was eventually registered, whether the suspected driver had been arrested, or the current medical condition of the injured constable. It said police efforts to identify and trace the driver were continuing using CCTV footage and other technical evidence.
