Mumbai: The Mumbai crime branch arrested a 27-year-old wanted accused who had escaped from Adharwadi jail in Kalyan in 2017. The accused who had gone into hiding in Tamil Nadu had committed eleven offences including house break-ins and attempt to commit murder, crime branch officials said.
The accused identified as David Murgesh Devendra alias Vinayak, a resident of Ulwe in Navi Mumbai, was involved in two criminal cases of Mahatma Phule Chowk police and Manpada police stations in Thane in 2013 and was lodged in Adharwadi jail as an undertrial.
On July 23, 2017, Devendra and another undertrial Manikandan Selvaraj Nadar, who were arrested on charges ranging from robbery, dacoity and attempted murder, escaped from Adharwadi jail by jumping over the prison walls with the help of a CCTV camera cable. The accused, after telling the authorities that they were going to answer nature’s call, had cut the cable and used it to scale a wall. An offence in this regard was registered against them at Khadakpada police station in Kalyan.
Assistant commissioner of police, Nitin Alakhnure, in a press statement stated that, specific information was received that Devendra was hiding in Navi Mumbai using a fake identity. A crime branch team then kept a watch on him for four days and arrested him on Tuesday from Sector 09 in Ulwe.
Devendra was then brought to the Antop Hill Unit of the Crime Branch where after checking his criminal records the police learnt that he had at least 15 cases registered against him in different police stations of Maharashtra with most cases in Thane, police said.
The accused during his custodial interrogation revealed that after fleeing from jail he had committed at least eleven offences including house break-in and attempt to commit murder in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu.