The crime branch unit (zone I) attached to the Mira Bhayandar-Vasai Virar (MBVV) police arrested four people with a country-made pistol and mephedrone (MD) drugs worth more than ₹25 lakh on Thursday afternoon.
They were holed up in a lodge located in the BP Road area of Bhayandar East, raising the question of whether such establishments in the twin city are a safe haven for criminals.
Acting on a tip-off, a police team swooped down on room number 104 in Hotel Vinyasa Residency. The police found four men Sani Bharat Solkar, 28, Vishal Satish Godse, 28, Deepak Jitendra Dubey, 26, and Shahbaz Shevai, 29, who were apparently staying in the hotel room since October 9.
Upon checking, the team recovered a country-made pistol, two live rounds, mobile phones, two electronic weighing machines, ₹70,000 cash and four plastic bags containing 251 grams of MD worth more than ₹25 lakh. The quartet were taken into custody and an offence under the relevant sections of the Arms Act,-1959 and provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1986 was registered against them at the Navghar police station.
However, the hotel manager claimed that he had maintained the identity documents of those who had booked the rooms and also those who visited them. Investigations were on to ascertain the source and destination of the consignment.
