Mumbai police arrest three men who robbed senior citizen in Mahim

The accused were arrested from Kurla Terminus and Kandivli by the property cell of the Mumbai crime branch on Sunday night.

Police arrested three persons for breaking into the house of a senior citizen at Mahim and running off with gold ornaments and cash worth Rs19 lakh on January 4.

Police arrested three persons for breaking into the house of a senior citizen at Mahim and running off with gold ornaments and cash worth Rs19 lakh on January 4. (Hindustan Times)

The accused were arrested from Kurla Terminus and Kandivli by the property cell of the Mumbai crime branch on Sunday night.

The three — Dhyanshekhar Shetty, 34, Ravi Shetty, 32, and Pawan Verma, 45 — were part of a group called Shetty gang, which Dhyanshekhar used to operate. Dhyanshekhar, a resident of Diva, has been involved in house breaking cases for nearly a decade, and has more than 18 cases registered against him. While Ravi has been Dhyanshekhar’s associate, Verma who lives in Kandivli, is an expert in melting stolen gold, which used to be sold to jewellery shops, said police officials.

Soon after the incident, the case was registered with the Mahim police station and the crime branch started conducting a parallel inquiry into the case. “We started inquiring in jails like Arthur road, Thane and Taloja and investigated into recent bails in such cases. We found that Shetty, who was arrested in a house break-in in Vile Parle, was released from jail two months ago,” said assistant police inspector Deep Bane of the property cell of the crime branch.

He added, “Informants were alerted to get leads about Shetty and we also started scanning CCTV cameras installed in the vicinity by traffic department. We checked 23 cameras till Bandra and found the movement of one car suspicious at Kalanagar junction in Bandra (East). We got details from the RTO office and later found that the car had been sold by a dealer in Vasai. We inquired with him, who had taken pictures of both Dhyanshekhar and Ravi Shetty before selling them the car.”

Both accused were on police records for previous cases and so the police alerted informers to learn that they would be going to Kurla terminus on January 21. Assistant police inspector Deep Bane along with his team laid a trap and nabbed them. During interrogation they confessed. The stolen booty was recovered.