Six held for stealing cell phones, chains during palkhi procession

PUNE: A six-member gang, involved in mobile and chain snatching during the Dnyaneshwar Maharaj and Tuakaram Maharaj palkhi processions in the city, were arrested on Sunday.
Two smart phones and a gold chain collectively worth Rs95,000 have been recovered from the suspects. They gang members have been identified as Mohane Kale (27), Sagar Pawar (18), Amol Gite (21), Hiralal Jadhav (35) all from Ahmedangar district and Rameshwar Jadhav (22), Dharmaraj Munjal (38) both from Beed district.

“Constable Ganpat Thikole received a tip-off that the gang would be coming at Mahavir chowk in Camp. We laid a trap and took them into custody,” Chandrakant Bhosale, the senior inspector of Pune Cantonment police told said.

During questioning, the gang members admitted to stealing the valuables when the procession was in Vishrantwadi. “Since the thefts happened in the jurisdiction of Samarth police, we have handed over the suspects to them for further probe,” Bhosale added.

Five cell phone thefts in the wari procession

Around five cases of cell phone thefts were reported during the Palkhi processions since it entered the city on Saturday and left for Pandharpur on Monday.

The suspects took advantage of the crowd, in all the incidents, to steal the cell phones of people who went to offer prayers in different areas of the city.

Sambhaji Fandewad (35), a Dhayari resident, lodged a complaint on Sunday stating that his cell phone worth Rs10,000 was stolen when he went to Sant Tukaram’s Palkhi at Nana Peth on Sunday night.

In another case, a woman (23) of Dighi lodged a complaint with that her cell phone worth Rs10,000 was stolen when she went to Dighi Magazine chowk, from where Palkhi of Sant Dnyaneshwar was passing, on Saturday morning.

In an incident at Garware bridge near Khandojibaba Chowk on Saturday night, a cell phone worth Rs15,000 was stolen from Datta Siddheshwar (23) of Deccan. The other two incidents happened in Hadapsar area on Monday.

Strong police bandobast was deployed at Nana Peth where the Palkhi had halted. Further, the city police had earmarked the entire route of the procession and provided bandobast to avert any untoward incident in the wari. Inspite of these efforts from the police, incidents of thefts were reported during the processions.