Navi Mumbai: Six persons have been arrested for allegedly robbing a bank manager of ₹1.97 lakh and a mobile phone on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway in the early hours of January 26.
According to the Panvel taluka police, the incident happened when the 37-year-old banker was on his way to Pune to meet his brother who had met with an accident. An unidentified car overtook him at Bhatan tunnel and made him stop. Two persons got down from the vehicle and slapped the complainant while accusing him of dashing their car, and demanded ₹10,000 as damages.
However, when the complainant refused to pay by claiming he had no money, the accused dragged him in their car while the other two accused drove the complainant’s car till Food Mall on the expressway.
Near Food Mall, the accused snatched the complainant’s mobile phone and left in their car. The banker then checked his dashboard and found the cash missing. He took help of a truck driver to make a call to 112 and informed the police about the incident.
Anil Patil, senior police inspector, said, “During the investigation, when we scrutinised the CCTV footage, we found that the car of the accused had gone towards Satara and the vehicle was not to be traced after passing the Khed-Shivapur toll gate due to lack of CCTV coverage. Assuming that the vehicle will return, we were in constant contact with the staff at the toll booth. They were instructed to inform us if the vehicle passed through the toll booth towards Mumbai. Meanwhile, we had also got the registered contact number of the FASTag of the car.”
{{/usCountry}}Anil Patil, senior police inspector, said, “During the investigation, when we scrutinised the CCTV footage, we found that the car of the accused had gone towards Satara and the vehicle was not to be traced after passing the Khed-Shivapur toll gate due to lack of CCTV coverage. Assuming that the vehicle will return, we were in constant contact with the staff at the toll booth. They were instructed to inform us if the vehicle passed through the toll booth towards Mumbai. Meanwhile, we had also got the registered contact number of the FASTag of the car.”
{{/usCountry}}On February 1, the police got to know that the car had passed the toll again towards Mumbai. They accordingly laid a trap at Panvel and nabbed the six accused identified as Raju Appa Pukale (25) from Kalamboli, Pramod Shrimant Kokare (28) from Koparkhairane, Mayappa Kisan Valkunde (24) from Sangli, Kiran Mahaveer Sargar (28) from Kamothe, Ashok Tanaji Patil (23) from Kalamboli and Sandeep Lavaji Kokre (23) from Kurla.
According to police, all the accused originally hail from Sangli. “While some are into tours and travel business, some are mathadi workers. They were going to Sangli when they ran out of cash to consume alcohol and stole the money. It was the first crime of all six,” Patil added.
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