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SIM card helps cops arrest killers
The Kalyan railway police on Wednesday arrested four accused in a murder that took place on July 18 between Ambernath and Badlapur railway stations. It was a mobile SIM card that provided the police with the most important leads in the case, DCP GJ. Bhandare, GRP, Mumbai, said.
The Kalyan railway police on Wednesday arrested four accused in a murder that took place on July 18 between Ambernath and Badlapur railway stations. It was a mobile SIM card that provided the police with the most important leads in the case, DCP GJ. Bhandare, GRP, Mumbai, said.
“On July 18, the police received information about the body of one Alex Fernandes, 45, lying on the tracks between Ambernath and Badlapur stations,” Bhandare said.
“For 10 days we were clueless about the murder and then one of our officers drew our attention to something that Fernandes’s wife had mentioned about a SIM card in his pocket,” he added.
The police then contacted the service provider and asked them to keep the number under observation. First eight days, they didn’t get any response. On the ninth day, the service provider told the police that the SIM card had been activated. The police asked them to record all calls made to and from the card.
One of the calls made from the SIM card was to Gurunath Pawar, who told the police that it had been made by one Pradip Paal. “Without wasting any time, our team nabbed Paal, who worked at a sweet-meat shop in Badlapur. After that it was easy to nab the three other accused. The fourth is still absconding,” Bhandare said.
The police said the motive of the accused was to rob Fernandes, not murder him. They had first offered him drinks and when he was drunk they took him to the tracks and started searching his pockets. However, when Fernandes regained consciousness he tried to fight off the five men, but they overpowered him. But found only Rs270 in his pockets. Scared that he would approach the police, they killed him and threw his body on to the tracks to make it look like an accident.
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