Data of 10,794 rickshaws checked to crack Ambegaon murder case
PUNE: Police used RTO data to identify suspect Sharukh Mansur in Ambegaon murder case, revealing he killed Priti Wakhore during a robbery attempt.
PUNE: The Bharati Vidyapeeth police secured the data of as many as 10,794 auto-rickshaws from the Regional Transport Office (RTO) and analysed the same to crack the Ambegaon murder case. With the help of the RTO, they got the photographs of over 1,200 autos on which various challans had been issued to zero in on the auto belonging to the suspect.
On June 9, the Bharati Vidyapeeth police arrested Sharukh Shakil Mansur, 27, a resident of Sayyed Nagar, Hadapsar, originally from Uttar Pradesh (UP). He was arrested from his native place in UP for the murder of Priti Wakhore, 35, reported on May 20 at Ambegaon Budruk. The police said that on a rainy evening on May 20, they recovered Wakhore’s body near the Colonel Patil Petrol Pump road in Ambegaon Budruk. The police analysed the footage from over 70 CCTV cameras belonging to over 100 establishments. It was difficult to see anything due to the heavy rain and poor visibility but a flash of lightning allowed the police to see the deceased woman boarding an auto-rickshaw in the CCTV camera footage. Still, they could not get the number of the auto due to poor visibility. The police then secured the data of as many as 10,794 auto-rickshaws from the Regional Transport Office (RTO) and analysed the same. With the help of the RTO, they got the photographs of over 1,200 autos on which various challans had been issued to zero in on the auto belonging to the suspect in this case. While analysing the footage from over 150 CCTV cameras on the stretch between Navale Bridge and Katraj Road, the police realised that in case of the auto that they were looking out for, there was a cylinder kept under the driver’s seat and the hood of the auto was black. Matching these details with the RTO data and photographs, the police shortlisted some autos and ultimately zeroed in on the suspect.
Nilesh Mokashi, police sub-inspector at Bharati Vidyapeeth police station, said, “It was difficult due to heavy rain and poor visibility at the time the crime occurred. Even thereafter, we took efforts for almost 10 days and scrutinised all the data and cross-checked every possible detail to identify the suspect.”
While analysing the footage from CCTV cameras on the stretch between Navale Bridge and Katraj Road, the police got a tipoff about a record criminal with five criminal cases registered against him. Upon checking, the mobile data of the person in question indicated that he was present at the scene of the crime. After confirmation, he was arrested from his native place. The investigation revealed that after committing the murder, he left for UP on May 25 to evade police arrest.
Mokashi said, “The accused offered to drop the victim at Katraj. During the trip, the accused took the auto aside and tried to snatch the victim’s bag. When she resisted, he hit her on the head using a sharp weapon and fled from the spot in the auto.”
Initially, the police thought that the woman had died due to heavy rain but a post-mortem confirmed that she had died due to head injuries caused by a sharp weapon.
