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Two arrested for theft on passenger bus, gold worth ₹37.7 lakh recovered
Pune: The Pune rural police, on Wednesday, arrested two of three men accused of stealing gold and cash worth ₹1 crore from a bus passenger, according to Abhinav Deshmukh, superintendent of Pune rural police
Pune: The Pune rural police, on Wednesday, arrested two of three men accused of stealing gold and cash worth ₹1 crore from a bus passenger, according to Abhinav Deshmukh, superintendent of Pune rural police. Gold worth ₹37.7 lakh was recovered from the duo.
The arrested men have been identified as Maruti Rajaram Pitekar and Ananta Lakshman Dhande, both residents of Karjat in Ahmednagar, according to police. The two are named in three other cases in Satara, Nandurbar, and Ahmednagar dating back to 2016. They are also booked in a criminal case in Karnataka.
The police are looking for one other person in the theft case. The three accused occupied seats on the bus and were aware of the complainant carrying gold ornaments.
“The accused and their family members stalk wholesale gold dealers who transport gold from one state to another. They pretend to be pilgrims and live in the vicinity of the houses of people who transport gold. They book themselves on the same bus on which their targets book tickets. When the person is sleeping or not paying attention, they pick up the bag. They tell the driver to stop the bus by citing sudden death of a family member,” read a statement by SP Deshmukh.
The complainant had boarded the bus in Hubli and was headed towards Mumbai in a private transport bus registered in the name of a travel company in Karnataka.
A case under Sections 379 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered at Rajgad police station in the case which dates back to October 11. The complainant submitted that he was robbed of cash worth ₹18 lakh and 2,110 grammes of 18-carat gold worth ₹81,24,000, according to the police.
The Pune rural police started investigating the case by forming two teams, one each for Kurduwadi in Solapur and one for Karjat in Ahmednagar.
