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Man steals from Mumbai home of Adi Godrej’s kin, stays at 5-star hotels, held
Gamdevi police have on Thursday arrested a 41-year-old man for allegedly committing thefts on five occasions at the Malabar Hill bungalow of Arvind Dubash, who is the son-in-law of industrialist Adi Godrej
Gamdevi police have on Thursday arrested a 41-year-old man for allegedly committing thefts on five occasions at the Malabar Hill bungalow of Arvind Dubash, who is the son-in-law of industrialist Adi Godrej.
The police claim the accused, Chetan Thulkar, has around 22 house break-in cases filed against him in south Mumbai in the recent past. A police officer said that after committing the thefts, Thulkar went to Goa, Nagpur and Kolkata by air and enjoyed five-star hotel stay there and spent on lavish lifestyle.
According to the police, on January 8, the Dubashs discovered that gold ornaments and cash, collectively worth Rs3.38 lakh, were stolen from the place of worship in their bungalow, Akashganga, located opposite Tata Garden on Breach Candy Road.
They suspected the involvement of their four domestic helps. The family’s manager Pankaj Shirsagar lodged a complaint in the case and a first information report (FIR) was then filed.
The police interrogated the domestic helps, but did not get any significant lead. They then discovered that the thief had entered through a window on the rear side of the bungalow.
“The CCTVs covering entrance of the bungalow and the adjoining road didn’t capture any suspicious movement, but a CCTV camera installed at the coastal road construction site 150 metres away from the bungalow captured two suspects breaching the 15-feet-high boundary wall of the bungalow with the help of an adjoining tree. The two got easy access to the window from the wall itself. They then removed the iron grills covering the window and entered the house,” said senior inspector R Rajbhar of Gamdevi police.
“This CCTV footage made it clear that the domestic helps were not involved in the theft and then we focused our probe on outsiders. Meanwhile, the complainant informed us that there was a small camera installed near the area in the house where the ornaments were stolen from. The camera had captured the movements of two men, but their faces were not clearly visible. However, later we identified one of the suspects as Thulkar,” Rajbhar added.
Police then activated their sources and discovered that prior to the theft, Thulkar was seen in the area and after the theft he had left for Goa, where he stayed in an elite hotel for couple of days, returned to Mumbai and then travelled to his hometown in Hinghanghat at Wardha district. He then went to Nagpur where he stayed at another five-star hotel.
The police team was trying to track him, but Thulkar kept changing his mobile phones.
“Through our informers, we then learnt that from Nagpur, Thulkar went to visit his girlfriend in Kolkata and booked air ticket to Mumbai after two days. We verified his travelling details and a police team immediately left for Kolkata. After he arrived at the airport to board a flight to Mumbai, he was nabbed with the help of the airport security and brought to the city,” said assistant police inspector Sharad Gare.
“During interrogation Thulkar revealed that he had conducted a recce of the bungalow and the positions of the CCTV cameras installed in the area before planning the theft. He had committed small thefts previously too at the bungalow in April, July, September and December last year,” said Rajbhar.
The police have recovered some stolen ornaments from his friend Prakash Lovekar, 55, who met him while the duo were lodged at Arthur Road jail. Lovekar would help Thulkar sell the stolen ornaments. He too has been arrested in the case.
The police have also arrested Akash Waghmare, 35, who had entered the bungalow along with Thulkar. Waghmare, who received Rs30,000 from the stolen cash, told the police that he aided Thulkar because he had an urgent requirement of money for his wife’s delivery.
Thulkar, a Class eight dropout, has 22 criminal thefts and other property offences registered against him at Malabar Hill, Pydhonie, Colaba, DB Marg and Azad Maidan police stations, a police officer said, adding that he would target old bungalows and never carry a mobile phone with him to the crime scene to avoid getting tracked and detected.
