PUNE: The Pune police arrested eight men for kidnapping a jeweller by posing as Income Tax officials and robbing him of gold and cash worth ₹20 lakh and 30 tolas of gold.
A complaint was lodged by Nandkishor Kantilal Verma (41), on Friday, and a case was registered in the early hours of Saturday. The plan to do this was found to have been hatched by Verma’s friend who allegedly pretended to have gotten kidnapped along with him.
The arrested men were identified as Vyas Gulab Yadav (34), Bhaiyasaheb Vitthal More , Kirankumar Nayar (31), Maruti Ashokrao Solanke (30), Umesh Arun Ubale (24), Ashok Jagannath Sawant (31), Suhas Suresh Thorat (32), Rohit Sambhaji Patil (23), according to the police.
Yadav, More and Shyam Achyut Tormal (31), gathered Nayar, Solanke, Ubale, Sawant, Thorat, and Patil and executed the plan.
On Thursday night, the complainant was with his friend, who is also an accused in the case, at Jambhulwadi road when the group of men arrived in a car. They introduce themselves as IT department officials and told him that they had come to conduct a raid at his house. The complainant got scared and followed their instructions, as the victim was asked to sit in the car. The men then took him to Swami Narayana temple and stopped the car on the service road. The men then produced weapons and asked him to give ₹75 lakh.
“The men threatened them and then took them back near his house and took the cash and gold from his house. All this while Yadav was with him, pretending to have gotten kidnapped as well. After they had left, he consulted with his family members and people who had knowledge about the IT department and realised that he had been cheated. The next day he approached the police and lodged a complaint,” said Sushma Chavan, assistant commissioner of police, Swargate division of Pune police.
{{/usCountry}}“The men threatened them and then took them back near his house and took the cash and gold from his house. All this while Yadav was with him, pretending to have gotten kidnapped as well. After they had left, he consulted with his family members and people who had knowledge about the IT department and realised that he had been cheated. The next day he approached the police and lodged a complaint,” said Sushma Chavan, assistant commissioner of police, Swargate division of Pune police.
{{/usCountry}}“The main accused accompanied Verma to the police station to lodge a complaint and pretended that he did not know anything about the plan. However, during the course of the investigation his suspicious behaviour let us to believe that he was somehow involved. Upon Interrogation he revealed the plan in bits and parts,” said Rahul Patil, deputy commissioner of police, zone 2 Pune
“The officials of Bhaarti Vidyapeeth police station traced them to Kolhapur and when they found the car and the men in it they tried to flee. Officials jumped on the car and broke the windshield to stop them from escaping. It is because of them that we got all of them and the car,” said Jagannath Kalaskar, senior police inspector of Bharati Vidyapeeth police station.
Yadav and the complainant are close friends which is why he knew about the latter’s financial situation. Verma ran a business along with three of his brothers and had refused to give money to Yadav when he had asked for it. Yadav had asked for ₹6 lakh from Verma in order to buy a shop.
“Yadav wanted the money to buy and shop. Two of the accused are also booked in a case of murder registered in Beed. They wanted to use the money for legal fees and other proceedings in that case,” said DCP Patil.
Vyas himself does not have a criminal history. However, he approached More who has multiple cases registered against him in the past. More gathered the others and planned for 20 days before stealing from Verma. A case under Sections 363, 364(a), 395, 394, 397, 387, and 506 of Indian Penal Code was registered at Bharati Vidyapeeth police station.