Man who drugged, robbed ad exec of ₹3.7 L arrested from Meerut

Police officials said after the family of Shailendera Sathe, the executive, lodged a complaint, they identified the accused and tracked him down to Meerut in Uttar Pradesh using CCTV footage from various spots

MUMBAI: The Matunga police have arrested a 52-year-old Meerut resident for allegedly drugging and robbing the owner of an advertising agency who was travelling from Pune to Mumbai on a Shivneri bus on June 14. Mohammed Yunus Shafikuddin Shaikh, the accused, had given a cup of coffee to the 57-year-old Pune-based advertising executive during the trip, which left him unconscious for around 80 hours, including 17 hours when he was lying unattended on a footpath near the Dadar state transport bus stand. Shaikh had drugged and robbed several people using a similar modus operandi, said police.

Man who drugged, robbed ad exec of ₹3.7 L arrested from Meerut

Police officials said after the family of Shailendera Sathe, the executive, lodged a complaint, they identified the accused and tracked him down to Meerut in Uttar Pradesh using CCTV footage from various spots.

“We have arrested Shaikh, an estate agent from Meerut, and have recovered 30 grams of stolen gold from him,” said Deepak Chavan, senior police inspector at the Matunga police station. The accused has been brought to Mumbai on a transit remand, he said.

According to the police, Shaikh had travelled from Kolhapur to Pune and then taken the Shivneri Bus, where he met Sathe, who stays with his wife and two sons in Pune’s Baner area. He offered a cup of coffee to Sathe when the bus halted at the Khalapur food mall, and robbed gold and valuables worth ₹3.70 lakh from him when he fell unconscious after drinking it.

The police suspect Shaikh has an accomplice who helps him with drugging and robbing people and are looking for him.

On June 14, while Sathe fell unconscious after drinking the coffee, the bus staff assumed he was drunk and helped him alight at the terminal stop in Dadar.

“Sathe’s wife called her brother Vishal Karkanis when she could not get in touch with her husband. Karkanis visited the Dadar bus stand after this, where he found his brother-in-law and took him to Jupiter hospital in Thane. He regained consciousness in the hospital, after about 80 hours,” said a police officer.

It was only after he regained consciousness that Sathe realised he had been robbed. He approached the Khopoli police in Raigad subsequently, who registered a case against an unknown accused under sections 328 (causing hurt by means of poison, etc. with intent to commit an offence) and 379 (theft) of the Indian Penal Code. The case was later transferred to the Matunga police station.