Mumbai: The police have been on the lookout for Ravindra Maruti Dhole – a known associate of the Amar Naik gang – who went missing from Mumbai almost 23 years ago. A team of four officers from the Rafi Ahmed Kidwai (RAK) Marg police station intensified the search after a city session court told the cops to present Mr Dhole before it after he failed to appear for almost 23 years.
“In 1998, Mr Dhole was arrested for assembling and making preparations to commit dacoity, and he was also a known associate of gangster Amar Naik. He was remanded to jail, but after a year, disappeared while out on bail. Even before 1998, he had several cases against him at various police stations in Mumbai for robbery. Since 1999, there has been no trace of him. At the time, the police had looked for him extensively but he was nowhere to be found,” explained investigation officer, assistant police inspector Mahesh Lamkhede of RAK Marg police station.
Mr Lamkhede added that Mr Dhole was 26 years old when he was active and there were no clues or leads in the old files that could be used. “We even kept a watch on his mother Yasodha who worked as a caretaker at Bhatia Hospital but he made no contact so that proved to be futile,” he said.
The team then started trying to locate the origin of his surname 'Dhole' in Maharashtra. “Surnames play a vital role, especially in Maharashtra. The origin of a surname is interconnected to the family's roots and 'Dhole' is not that common, yet significant,” the official said. Finally, after involving another set of experts, the team traced the name to Junnar taluka in Pune.
“Initially we did not find many details but by chance, we searched a village close to the one we suspected and found a match. The only description we had of Mr Dhole was a burn injury on his leg. We started looking around and found a match at Vithalwadi – a small village in Yenere of Junnar taluka,” he added.
The official added that Dhole had tweaked his location in his Aadhar Card and Voter ID so as to be untraceable by anyone – including his past enemies and the cops. He was living a quiet life in the village with his 19-year-old daughter.
