PUNE: Pimpri Chinchwad police commissioner Krishna Prakash and two policeman suffered bruises during a late Sunday night exchange of fire and chase at Koye village near Chakan, about 45km from the city, leading to the arrest of three suspects wanted in the recent murder of Yogesh Jagtap (36), a criminal on records, at Pimple Gurav.
Krishna Prakash was leading one of the four police teams, which had encircled a house close to a farm field at Koye after establishing the presence of the three suspects there. The trio ran out of the house on sensing the police movement and two of them fired indiscriminately to deter the approaching policemen. The police fired two rounds in retaliation. No one was injured in the exchange of fire, but the suspects moved into the nearby farm field and became aggressive as they kept running towards a nearby hillock with the policemen running after them.
“We were closing in on the house from the hillock side when we noticed the trio running away with our other teams chasing them. We also started chasing them and I picked up a fairly thick 6ft long tree branch and hurled it at the three men. Two of them fell on the ground and the third stuttered. That was enough for our men to zero in on and overpower them,” Krishna Prakash told TOI during a one-on-one interaction at his residence on Monday evening.
“I suffered some bruises and abrasions to my hands and stomach, partly because of a slip while coming down the hillock towards the house, besides a crawling approach to the house for some distance. The incident also caused a shoulder sprain and I went for a medical check up on Monday. The doctor’s advised me a day’s rest.”
Assistant police inspector Satish Kamble and another policemen, whose name could not be confirmed immediately, suffered minor bruises in the action. It was a 20-member police contingent which carried out the action.
The police later recovered two country-made firearms, a cartridge and a motorcycle from the tri — Ganesh Mote (23), a criminal externed from Solapur district and main suspect in the Pimple Gurav murder, Mahesh Mane (23) of Sangvi and Ashwin Chavan (21) of Katepuram Chowk where Jagtap was shot dead at 10.30am on December 18. Mote and Chavan are from Mohol and Barshi, respectively, in Solapur district. Mane is from Pathsavangi in Bhum taluka of Osmanabad district.
“In their preliminary questioning, the trio told police that they had opened fire thinking that their rival gang members were closing in on them,” Krishna Prakash said.
On December 18, Mote and his aide had fired four rounds at Jagtap before snatching the bike of a passerby at gunpoint and driving away from the spot. A separate murder attempt case has been registered on the basis of the biker’s complaint. The police had since established involvement of 14 people in the conspiracy.
“With the trio’s arrest, we have so far nabbed nine suspects and detained one minor. Four suspects are still on the run. Collectively, we have seized four country-made pistols from those arrested so far,” ” deputy commissioner of police (DCP) Anand Bhoite told TOI.
As narrated by the police chief, the tip-off about Mote and his two aides came while Krishna Prakash was at Alandi on Sunday night to assess the investigation of the Rs16 lakh theft by some unidentified robbers who had triggered a blast at a private bank’s ATM at Chimbali village in the early morning hours.
“Our chief immediately formed four teams that set out for Koye village. The chief was himself leading one team, while assistant commissioner Prashant Amrutkar, senior inspector Sunil Tonpe of the Sangvi police (investigating the Jagtap murder) and assistant inspector (API) Satish Kamble led the other teams,” said DCP Manchak Ipper.
“One of the teams first carried out a recce of the spot and found a motorcycle, without a registration number plate, parked outside a lone house in the corner of a farm land at Koye. After establishing the trio’s presence in the house, the team signalled others and all the police teams started approaching the house from different directions around 11.15pm,” said Ipper.
He said, “On seeing the policemen approaching them, the trio started running towards the nearby hillock. In the process, one of them first fired a round in the direction of the team near the hillock while another suspect opened fire in the direction of another team. In return, senior inspector Tonape and API Kamble fired one round each towards the suspects. Despite the bushes and trees, the police commissioner and the other teams were chasing them.”
He said apart from the two country-made pistols, the police also seized a cellphone and a motorcycle from the trio. “A separate case under section 307 (attempt to murder), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of the Indian Penal Code and under the Indian Arms Act provisions has been registered.
