Mumbai: The Trombay police have arrested three people, including two railway police constables, for allegedly stealing 4.5kg gold worth Rs2.5 crore.
The police said the matter came to light when a Mangalore-based business approached them claiming theft of a consignment headed for Zaveri Bazaar by his worker.
An official probing the matter said that the complainant received a call from a railway policeman in Mumbai saying that the businessman’s worker was found unconscious on a railway track and someone stole all the gold in his possession. The businessman rushed to Mumbai and found that his worker had already approached the Trombay Police claiming that someone stole the gold and left him near a railway track in Chembur.
A policy probe was initiated by questioning the worker identified as Nitin Patil, 28. During questioning, though, he was behaving suspiciously and later confessed to being involved in the theft along with his two friends. The accomplices, railway cops, have been identified as Prabhakar Natekar, 29, and Vikas Pawar, 31. The second accomplice and the businessman’s worker hail from the same place in Sangli.
The police said railway constable Vikas Pawar was the mastermind of the robbery and approached Nitin Patil with the plan of cooking up a story to mislead his employer and the police.
The police said their plan was to sell the gold in another market and split the proceeds three ways. Meanwhile, the police have managed to recover the complete stolen booty and have handed it over to the complainant. The suspects were produced in court, which remanded them to police custody till Tuesday.
A case has been registered against the accused under sections 408 (criminal breach of trust by clerk or servant) and 120 (b) (punishment for criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
