In an interesting case, the Trombay police have arrested five individuals while detaining a minor who used the Porter app to book a truck for stealing iron scraps from a metro construction site in Mankhurd’s Maharashtra Nagar area, worth over Rs. 17 lakhs.
Details of incident
The incident was first reported on the night of Feb 14 when the supervisor of the plot noticed several iron clamps, scraps and other items used during the construction work were missing. He later approached the police, and subsequently, a probe was initiated.
The ongoing metro construction work is for Metro 2B which connects Andheri’s DN Nagar to Mankhurd’s Mandale.
During the preliminary probe, police found out that a truck was used to move the items by some people. Some eyewitnesses told the police that the truck went via Khandoba Mandir Marg towards Yogayatan Port, near Sion-Panvel Highway. They spotted the truck and also arrested four people.
The accused has been identified and the truck, seized
The four are identified as Waheed Khan (35), Shabar Shaikh (31), Wasimullah Khan (46) (driver) and Rashid Qureshi (29) – all belong to Govandi and Mankhurd areas.
The truck was filled with some of the stolen items which were seized, along with the truck. During the interrogation, police found out that the truck was managed by the Porter app, and that somebody had booked the truck minutes before the theft took place. The arrested accused refused to give out more information on the fifth accused. The driver of the truck had first refused to help the accused, but the latter allegedly offered double the payment which is when he agreed.
The police later approached the Porter company and asked to give them details about the bookings made which revealed Shiva Mantal, who was then arrested. According to the police, Mantal kept denying his role or booking the truck, however, as per his mobile phone’s technical records, he did book the truck with the pickup point being Maharashtra Nagar and the dropping point being Mandale – both in Mankhurd.
Through Mantal, the police found a buyer who had brought some scraps in exchange for money, who was also placed under arrest. Along with them, a minor boy was also detained by the police, who was part of the gang. He has no history of crime, hence he was handed over back to his parents, along with counseling sessions. All the other five arrested accused have more than six criminal cases registered against them at the eastern region police stations for similar crimes.
They all have been remanded to judicial custody by the court.
