The City crime branch arrested a police constable and three others for allegedly duping a jeweller and fleeing with gold bars worth ₹ 1.25 crore on Monday evening. A driver of the jeweller tipped the accused about the jeweller, his routine and how much gold he carries and hatched the conspiracy, police said.
The four identified as Khalil Kadar Shaikh (47), a police constable attached to Local Arms Department, Ravindra Kunchikurve (36), Santosh Nakte (27), and Mahesh Jadhav (36), all residents of Sewri area. The driver of the jeweller who allegedly hatched the property has been arrested by Byculla police station.
The incident took place on Monday evening when the jeweller Bharat Jain, 56, and his employee Milesh Kamble were on their way to Jain's factory. Around 6.10 in the evening two men posed as policemen riding on a scooter intercepted their two-wheeler near Police quarters at Dadoji Konddeo Marg, Byculla. The policemen, on the pretext of demanding scooter's papers from Jain, took his bag forcefully and escaped. The bag allegedly contained gold bars weighing 2.480 kilograms, the police said. Realizing that he had been duped, Jain approached Byculla police station and lodged a complaint.
The Byculla police registered an offence under section 170 (impersonating a public servant), 171 (wearing garb or carrying tokens used by public servant with fraudulent intent), 420 (cheating) and 34 (common intention) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and are investigating the matter further.
The crime branch unit 3 on their end started a parallel investigation. "We checked multiple CCTV camera of entire Byculla area and identified the suspicious scooters and started picking the accused, "said a crime branch officials.
The crime branch has so far recovered over 1 kilogram of gold worth ₹52.74 lakh and handed them over to Byculla police station for further investigation. The accused will be produced before the court on Thursday.
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