MUMBAI: More than 200 closed-circuit television (CCTV) grabs of the people who travelled between Dahisar and Andheri (East) on the Western Express Highway came to help police bust a gang of robbers.
The grabs that were matched with the criminal record database (CRD) of the Mumbai Police helped Andheri Police to crack a case of dacoity of 77 gold ornaments worth Rs 47 lakh with the arrest of seven people from Dhule Toll Naka on July 29.
Andheri Police managed to recover 475 gms gold biscuit worth Rs 24.28 lakh from the mastermind Amin Shaikh and his aides, including a senior citizen Shashikant Kolwalkar (63), who planned and executed the offence during the one-hour travel posing as commuters in BEST (Bus no. 440) on July 19.
The gang commutes as passengers in the bus in a group where each person is assigned the role to be executed on the target in the moving bus before one of them separates with the booty
The seven accused--Shaikh, Kolwalkar, Mahendra More (45), Manoj Medhe (33), Vijaykumar Gupta (38) and two accused Manish Darji (34) and Shaitansingh Rajput (38)--were sent to judicial custody on Thursday.
Police are searching for four more accused who aided Shaikh to execute the offence.
All the seven arrested are college dropouts who have executed the offences in a unique way.
“Mastermind Shaikh planned the dacoity along with his aides and boarded the bus at different locations after following the victim Madhukar Kavinkar (44) from Dahisar Bus stop. Shaikh snatched the bag in which the gold was kept while one of his aides diverted Kavinkar’s attention before the gang dispersed and gathered at a location in northern suburbs to flee to Rajasthan with the booty after hiring a self-drive cab,” said DCP (Zone X) Maheshwar Reddy.
The case was registered after Kavinkar realised that the gold ornaments bag was snatched by someone after the gang of at least 8 to 10 people created a crowd in the BEST bus who stood closer to him (victim). Kavinkar was heading to Zaveri Bazar to deliver the order on July 19.
In the complaint, Kavinkar said, “I was seated when a few people that boarded the bus from different stops created a crowd. Suddenly my bag was stolen before I could check. One of the commuters told me that he noticed a person jumping from the moving bus and sped away towards Vile Parle on a bike.”
Based on the complaint, DCP Reddy supervised the team--Andheri police senior inspector Vijay Belge, assistant inspector Ganesh Pisal, sub-inspector Digambar Pagare and detection staff--thar got a tip-off that the accused has hired a self-driven vehicle from a person known to accused More (who is a driver by profession).
“Shaikh and his aides travelled to Rajasthan and later to Jalore District in Ujjain where they sold the gold ornaments with the help of arrested Darji and Rajput. With the money earned, they travelled to Indore before deciding to return to Mumbai when they were nabbed from Dhule Toll Naka (the border between Maharashtra and MP,” said Belge.
“They are going to get permission from the court to apply MCOCA against the accused who have many dacoity and robbery cases in the city. More has two cases, Medhe was booked in three cases, Shaikh has nine cases, Kolwalkar four, Gupta 12, Darji three and one case against Rajput. They target people after looking at their bags and sense the valuables with his experience,” said Pisal.
