Absence of Parsi officer forces Mumbai police to return apartment in South Mumbai
Mumbai: The Mumbai police will now have to surrender a luxurious flat in South Mumbai as it has failed to find a Parsi police officer in the department.
The Mahalakshmiwala trust had allotted a 850 sq.ft flat to the Mumbai police in 1940, at a very nominal rate. However, the trust had laid down one condition- only a Parsi police officer would be allowed to stay.
The flat is located at Dhunjiboy apartment in Tardeo, Grant road. The Trust had given it to the police department with the expectation that there should be a police officer staying in the residential area.
However, since the police department failed to find a Parsi officer for the last 10 years, the flat had been lying vacant. The last Parsi officer to stay in this apartment was Firoz Ganziya, who vacated it in 2008.
Mumbai’s previous police commissioner, Subodh Jaiswal had started collecting data regarding empty police flats under E-Awaas scheme and had asked respective police stations to update the information. The information also included details about the Dhunjiboy apartment.
Vinayak Narale, the Additional Commissioner who was transferred to Mumbai from Kolhapur was looking for a place to stay and registered for it online. Accordingly, he was allotted that flat. But when he reached the apartment, Parsi residents refused to let him in as he was a non-Parsi officer.
Narale reported the incident to the Tardeo police which in turn informed the police headquarters. Later, a search started for a Parsi police officer and they found two of them in the department. However, one officer was already posted outside Mumbai, while the other declined since he has an apartment of his own in the city.
Therefore, the police department has decided to return the flat to the trust and have informed the home department.
