The Matunga police on Tuesday arrested three persons for allegedly stealing laptops from passengers travelling on Shivneri buses between Mumbai and Pune. With the arrest of the trio, the police claimed to have solved a total of 17 cases of laptop theft registered at various police stations in Mumbai and Pune, including five at the Matunga police station. The police are still on the lookout for another accused in the case.
“We often received complaints from passengers travelling by Shivneri buses of their laptops being stolen. Eventually we formed a team of officers, who, for 15 days, travelled everyday between Mumbai and Pune and arrested the accused red-handed while they were trying to flee with a laptop,” said N Ambika, Zonal Deputy Commissioner.
A team led by sub-inspectors G Kharmate and Pradeep Patil went through the FIRs and found that most cases took place in early morning buses. Eventually the three accused — Tanveer Chaudhary, Mansoor Rajpoot and Hasan Qureshi — were arrested by the police.
“On interrogation, we found that once the passengers got off the bus to eat at Lonavala, the accused would run their hands through the luggage and identify the bag carrying a laptop. They would then pull out the bag, remove the laptop and keep the bag at the same spot,” Kharmate said. The accused would then get off the bus at the next stop.
