In a major breakthrough in perhaps the biggest-ever robbery on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, the Khopoli police have arrested two police constables from Pune — identified as Ashish Pawar and Sampat Pardhi — and eight others for allegedly robbing three employees of a jewellery merchant of cash and valuables worth a Rs 1.29 crore. The eight arrested gangsters include mastermind of the robbery Hiraman Salunke, a resident of Chinchwad, a satellite town near Pune.
“We have seized Rs 65.54 lakh cash and jewellery worth Rs 1.10 lakh from them. We are trying to ascertain if the arrested policemen and gangsters were involved in similar crimes in the past. We have also sent a report to the Pune Police on the arrest of the two of their constables in connection with the robbery. We expect our Pune counterparts to initiate departmental action against the two constables," Raigad district Superintendent of Police Ankush Shinde told The Pioneer on Thursday. The two arrested police constables and eight others have, meanwhile, been remanded in police custody till December 27.
The meticulous planning that went into the execution of the December 10 robbery should make one sit up and take notice of the bizarre crime that took place on a busy Mumbai-Pune Expressway.
The investigations have revealed that the two armed police constables and the mastermind, travelling by a car, quietly followed a private bus in which a jewellery merchant Sunil Kadam’s three employees —Maruti lavte, Sachin Takle and Amol More — were heading from Mumbai to Pune, on December 10 night. Simultaneously, other members of Salunke’s gang also drove behind the bus in a separate Tavera.
As normally is case with vehicles negotiating the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, the private bus stopped by at the wayside Food Mall at Khopoli around 9.45 pm. The three employees — carrying jewellery and cash worth Rs 1.29 crore in a bag — got off the bus to use the washroom at the mall.
After the three employees came out of the hotel, the two constables, in uniform, and six others — all pretending to be policemen in plain clothes — accosted the trio and told them that they were under arrest in a bomb blast case. Before long, the gangsters forced the three employees in the Tavera and drove them to an isolated location at the hill station of lonavla, situation en route to Pune, where they assaulted the trio.
When the three employees refused to hand over the bag with cash and valuables to the gangsters, one of the police constables pulled out a revolver and threatened them.
While decamping from the scene with cash and jewellery, the gangsters threatened the trio against reporting the matter to the police. However, Sunil Kadam —who owns a jewellery shop at Atpadi in Sangli district of western Maharashtra — lodged an FIR at the Khopoli police station in Raigad district, the following day.
Realising that some insider might have tipped off the accused about the transshipment of jewellery, a team of policemen, led by Inspector SS Shukla, began questioning other employees of Kadam.
After clues obtained through questioning, the investigators arrested Shridhar Ghadge (30) and Sudarshan Javir (27) at Atpadi. The two arrested persons confessed to their involvement in the crime and led the investigators to other accused, including the two police constables and the mastermind, Salunke.
later, the investigators arrested Ashish Pawar of the Deccan police station and Sampat Pardhi of the Bhosari police station on Tuesday. The six others, including Salunke (42), were arrested subsequently.
The other arrested gangsters have been identified as Deepak Narewadi (29), Prakash Chavan (38), Sunil Date (33), Shankar Jadhav (42) and Tulsiram Dalve (42).
"During the preliminary investigations, we have come to know that a couple of Kadam’s employees had tipped off about the impending transshipment of cash and valuables by a private bus. The insiders had also identified Kadam’s three employees, who were to carry the cash and other valuables in a bag. After keeping a watch on the trio, the gangsters -- accompanied by the two policemen -- had followed in two vehicles the private bus in which the three employees were travelling on December 10," DSP Shinde said.
According Shinde, the gangsters had sold a major chunk of jewellery in Mumbai. After the arrest, the police have in all seized Rs 65.54 lakh in cash -most of which made from selling the jewellery, gold jewellery worth Rs 1.10 lakh that one of the gangsters had bought from the robbed cash and the car used in the crime.