Delhi man held in CDR scam, arrest tally goes up to 17

The Thane police said they will now recall their previous suspects, who are out on bail, for further questioning

The Thane police have arrested their 17th suspect involved in the Call Detail Records (CDR) scam from Delhi: a 32-year-old man who runs a readymade garment shop in the national capital and has a record of being imprisoned twice in the past.

The accused has been identified as Saurabh Sahu, who lives in Ghaziabad, and according to the police, is a call-history sheeter and one of the masterminds of the scam. He was on the run ever since a case was lodged with the Kalwa police station in January.

Sahu has previously been jailed in Delhi and Mumbai, in 2016 and 2017 respectively for similar crimes.

The Thane police said they will now recall their previous suspects, who are out on bail, for further questioning.

While searching for Sahu, the police went to his home in Shalimar Garden (Ghaziabad) four times but he somehow gave them the slip. A police officer from the Thane crime branch said they finally nabbed him and brought him to Thane on Monday to produce him in front of a sessions court. “He (Sahu) had applied for anticipatory bail but it was rejected. We found that he had destroyed most of the physical evidence. He used to hide at his relatives’ or friends’ places,” the officer said.

During the investigation, the police found links with a private agency at Delhi that helped Sahu to get CDRs of requested customers. “Sahu is the main link between Delhi and Mumbai. The two other suspects, Klin Mishra and Shitla used to sell the CDRs to the accused (private detectives) Prashant Palekar and Pratik Mohpal. They would sell it to their customers for ₹50,000 to ₹1 lakh,” the officer said.

Police are looking into Sahu’s bank account details as well as his social media handles to see if they can provide further leads in the case.

The scam came to light when a unit of the Thane crime branch, in January, arrested four private detectives — Makesh Pandiyan, 42, Prashant Palekar, 49, Jigar Makawana, 35, and Samresh Jha, 32 — for illegally selling CDRs for prices ranging from ₹25,000 to ₹50,000. These included.

Others who have been arrested in the scam till now include the well-known woman detective Rajani Pandit and lawyer Rizwan Siddhiqui, who was later released on bail.