PUNE: The Pune rural police arrested 15 men and detained two boys on the charge of robbing cash and valuables worth Rs 66.77 lakh from the bungalow of an elderly paediatrician in Lonavla on the night intervening June 16 and 17.
Cash and valuables worth Rs30.52 lakh were recovered from them. “The prime suspect, a resident of Sagar in Madhya Pradesh,has cases of robbery and dacoity are registered against him in Maharashtra, Goa, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. There were rumours about the doctor having stashed huge cash at his bungalow. This prompted them to plot and execute the dacoity,” Pune rural superintendent of police (SP) Abhinav Deshmukh said on Thursday.
The gang had robbed cash of Rs50 lakh and ornaments worth Rs16.7 lakh from the bungalow of Heeralal Khandelwal (73) around 2am on June 17 after threatening Khandelwal and his 66-year-old wife and forcing them to hand over the keys of their locker. The suspects then collected cash and gold ornaments after binding their hands and legs. The bungalow is located at Pradhan Park in Lonavala city.
The police identified the arrested suspects as Hemant Kushwah (24), Prashant Kushwah alias Patel (27), Daulat Patel (24), Vijay Patel (21), Govind Kushwah (18) and Pradeep Dhanuk (28), all residents of Sagar in Madhya Pradesh, Sanjay Shendge (47), Sunil Shejwal (40), Mukesh Rathod (45) and Dinesh Ahire (38), all residents of Ghatkopar (West), Mumbai, Ravindra Pawar (42) of Andheri (West), Mumbai, Shyamsundar Sharma (43) of Goregaon (East), Mumbai, Vikash Gurav (34) of Vakola, Mumbai, Nathu Vishwasrao – Deshmukh (52) of Maval and Sagar Dhotre (25) of Hadapsar.
Senior inspector Padmakar Ghanwat and inspector Dilp Pawar of Lonavla (city) police studied the CCTV footage obtained from the Lonavla railway station. “Footage helped us to identify some of the suspects and a team went to Mumbai and made arrests there,” the SP said.
Following this, a team went to Sagar and made arrests. “The Mumbai-based suspects work as casual workers in and around film city. Nathu Deshmukh heard about the cash at the residence of the doctor. He spoke about it with the other casual workers who told Kushwah,” he said.
On June 11, two of the now arrested men conducted a recce of the bungalow. Without entering the hospital premises, 12 men entered the bungalow and executed the dacoity, he said.
“They distributed the booty among themselves. Some made purchases, some paid off debts, one of them married off his sister,” Deshmukh said.
