Pune hospital disappearance shines a light on notorious mephedrone gang

The gang was led by Arvindkumar Prakashchand Lohare, 39, who lived in Oshiwara, Mumbai. A chemistry graduate, Lohare was known as “doctor” in the pharma units that dot Chakan and Nashik for his expertise in manufacturing mephedrone

Pune: At around 10 pm on October 2, a public holiday, a six foot tall man, well built, with a surgical mask on his face, stepped out of Sassoon General Hospital, Pune’s largest government run health facility, and walked 1.2 kilometres to the Lemon Tree Hotel near the Pune Railway station before disappearing.

. After the October 2020 drugs bust by Chakan police which resulted in the arrest of almost all gang members, Lohare approached Patil who was still out, to get his wife Pradnya, a lawyer, to secure bail for the gang (HT PHOTO)

The disappearance of Lalit Patil, 34, has led to dismay and even panic in Pune police as he had been in their custody when he coolly absconded. Patil, known among law enforcers as a hardened drug peddler, had been arrested in October 2020 during a crackdown on the production, sale, and trafficking of mephedrone also called in popular parlance as Meow Meow. Patil was part of a gang of 22 men which produced mephedrone at locations ranging from farm houses in Raigad to shuttered chemical plants in Nashik and then sold it in open market.

The gang was led by Arvindkumar Prakashchand Lohare, 39, who lived in Oshiwara, Mumbai. A chemistry graduate, Lohare was known as “doctor” in the pharma units that dot Chakan and Nashik for his expertise in manufacturing mephedrone. After the October 2020 drugs bust by Chakan police which resulted in the arrest of almost all gang members, Lohare approached Patil who was still out, to get his wife Pradnya, a lawyer, to secure bail for the gang.

One of the gang members told the investigators about Patil’s involvement, alleging that it was he who raised finances for Lohare, leading to Patil’s subsequent arrest.

Fast forward to June this year when Patil complained of ill health and was shifted by Yerwada jail authorities to Sassoon General Hospital. He remained there from May to October 2nd when he disappeared. This long stint despite prison officials’ 4 letters to Sassoon management that they should discharge him. The police and prison officials had been getting increasingly concerned after information that a thriving drugs trade was being conducted from inside the sanctuary of Sassoon Hospital. On September 30th the anti-narcotics cell (ANC) laid a trap near the hospital’s main gate and arrested Patil’s associate, a man called Subhash Janaki Mandal, 29, who had just emerged from inside the hospital building carrying 1.72 kilogram of mephedrone estimated at ₹2.14 crore. He later told the police that he had been given the consignment to sell in open market. Subsequent probe revealed that Patil’s brother Bhushan and an associate Abhishek Balkawade had rented a chemical plant in Shinde village in Nashik district which had shut down, and where they were producing mephedrone in industrial quantity. Police revealed that after Lalit Patil got admitted into Sassoon Hospital this May, he summoned his brother and Balkawade and instructed them to learn from Lohare how to manufacture mephedrone.

The wannabe chemists found an ingenious way to learn for Lohare who is lodged in Yerwada jail. An officer from the investigating team of the Pimpri-Chinchwad police commissionerate told HT that Lohare would smuggle out chits with detailed instructions from inside the jail to the two men. From time to time, Lalit’s brother would come to Sassoon Hospital carrying packets of mephedrone which he would hand over to a 19 year old hospital canteen boy, Rauf Rahim Shaikh, who would in turn pass the package to Mandal to sell.

After Mandal’s arrest on September 30th, the police arrested the canteen boy Shaikh from Pune while Bhushan Patil, Abhishek Balkawade were arrested in a joint operation by Pune police and UP STF from Barabanki. The two men had allegedly been planning to escape to Nepal from there. In the meanwhile, Lalit Patil who found out about Mandal’s arrest on September 30th, planned his own escape. The police have also since arrested a driver named Datta Doke who allegedly helped him leave town.

Arvind Lohare, the “doctor” gave the group lessons in organic chemistry while another associate Rakesh Khaniwadekar, also in jail since 2020, helped them set up a mephedrone manufacturing unit in a farmhouse at Raigad, said the police explaining how the gang of 22 was set up. Another associate Kiran Rajguru allegedly supplied raw material while Lalit Patil handled the group’s finances.

After Patil’s arrest however, the gang fell short of money for bail and for legal expenses which is when they decided to resume mephedrone production. The police has yet to uncover their larger possible nexus with Yerwada jail officials and those at Sassoon General Hospital though the state has appointed a 4-member committee to inquire into the lapses. The Pune police too has suspended 9 police personnel who were on guard duty at Sassoon.