Mumbai: A history-sheeter with three cases of railway theft was arrested by the Local Crime Branch (LCB) of the Government Railway Police (GRP). The police recovered gold ornaments amounting to Rs 4,80,000 from him during the investigation.
According to the GRP, the complainant along with his relatives boarded the Konkan Kanya Express from Dadar around 11.30 pm on August 27 when at around 12.30am wife of the complainant realised that someone had stolen a box of jewellery from her bag, which amounted to almost Rs 4,70,000.
The victim then filed a complaint at the Thane railway station about the theft which led to investigation. A team was deployed to scrutinise the CCTV footage of Dadar, Thane and Panvel railway stations, with the possibility of spotting the accused.
One of the officers spotted a suspicious man who already had previous crime records and was wanted by the police. The accused, in this case, was the same man who was caught on the CCTV footage.
“He had been stealing valuables from the commuters travelling by inter-city trains. Through the footage and human intelligence we were able to track the accused to his hometown in Pandharpur. We sent a team and arrested the accused,” said police inspector Arshuddin Shaikh of the LCB, GRP.
The accused has been identified as Dattu Pawar, 39, from Thane. After questioning, the accused admitted to his crimes. Gold items along with two mobile phones were seized from him.
The accused has been booked under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 379 (Punishment for theft).