Lokhandwala resident steals vault from neighbouring house, arrested

A man living on the 29th floor of a highrise in Mumbai was arrested for stealing a vault from his next-door neighbours. The theft was caught on CCTV.

MUMBAI: A man living on the 29th floor of a plush highrise in Lokhandwala was arrested by the Oshiwara police for allegedly stealing a vault from the home of his next-door neighbours, who were abroad at the time.

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The case came to light when the 15-year-old son of the flat owner, who was staying with his uncle at Kurla, happened to check the footage of the CCTV camera in their living-room, to which he had access on his phone. He saw two masked men enter their flat on December 24 and take away the vault which contained cash and jewellery. His uncle made a police complaint two days later, stating that valuables worth ₹16.7 lakh had been stolen. When the police recovered the vault from the next-door neighbours, Marush Motwani, 39, and Pradeep Kukreja, 36, they found it contained ₹23.5 lakh worth of valuables.

“Thanks to the CCTV camera, the two accused were caught red-handed,” said an official from the Oshiwara police. “It was audio-enabled, and the two were heard talking when they were in the flat. We could hear their first names as they addressed each other.”

When the officers visited the flat for a spot analysis the next night, they noticed that the name on the name plate of the house next door was Marush Motwani. Something clicked, and they realised that one of the men in the CCTV footage had been addressed as ‘Marush’ by the other.

Based on their suspicions, the cops entered the flat and found two paying guests. On the pretext of wanting some water to drink, they went further in. One of them slipped into the bedrooms, and found the clothes and masks used during the theft on the bed. “Motwani was not in the city at the time,” said the officer. “We waited for him to return and nabbed him. He first denied everything but later admitted to his crime when we told him we had found the clothes and masks in his room.”

The investigation team—Oshiwara ACP Suryakant Banger, senior inspector Mohan Patil and assistant inspector Anand Nagral under the guidance of Zone 9 DCP Krishnakant Upadhyay—then arrested Motwani’s accomplice Kukreja from Ulhasnagar.

Motwani was living in the flat inherited from his father but had not been working for the last couple of years. “He said he planned to steal from the neighbours to fund his lifestyle,” said the officer. He enlisted the help of his friend Kukreja who works in an event-planning company.”

The duo is currently in judicial custody.