The Mumbai Police Crime Branch has arrested four accused of allegedly robbing a courier company employee of his parcel that contained diamond studded jewellery worth over ₹1.33 crore.
According to the Crime Branch officers, the complainant, who works for a Mumbai-based courier company, picked up the parcel from a jewellery manufacturing unit in the Sun Mills Compound in Lower Parel on October 27. The police said his job was to pick up the parcel and deposit it in his office, from where it would be sent to its intended recipients.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Detection) Dilip Sawant said, “The complainant was walking towards the Lower Parel railway station when he was accosted by the accused. One of them attacked him from behind, while another threw red chilli powder in his eyes. A third accused cut the strap of his bag, and the accused fled the scene.”
Avoided CCTV cameras
The complainant registered an FIR with the NM Joshi Marg police, and the Crime Branch Unit III was instructed to conduct parallel inquiries into the matter. An officer with the Unit III of the Crime Branch said that the case was challenging because the accused had taken care to avoid being captured by Closed Circuit Television cameras in the area.
The officer said, “The entire robbery was over in less than five minutes and the accused obviously knew where and when to trap the complainant, which indicated insider information. We started checking on the movements of the complainant’s colleagues and when that did not yield any clues, we expanded the scope of our investigations. We made inquiries about other courier companies whose services are used by the gold manufacturing units, who send ornaments to jewellers based all over the country.”
While making these inquiries, the investigating team started checking cellular locations of possible suspects and found out that a courier boy with another company was present in the same area as the scene of the crime on the day of the offence.
Three accomplices
The suspect, Suresh Doke (36), was subsequently picked up for inquiries and after prolonged and intensive questioning, the Crime Branch allegedly established his involvement in the robbery. Mr. Doke also revealed that he was assisted by three accomplices, identified as Mahendra Choudhari (23), Satish Sanap (29) and Vilas Pawar (25). All the four accused were placed under arrest on Monday.
Mr. Sawant said, “We have also found that two of the four accused have cases registered against them in police stations such as Nirmal Nagar, Sewri, LT Marg and Byculla. We are getting further details about this. Around 80% of the stolen jewellery, worth ₹1.15 crore, has been recovered from the accused.” The accused have been charged with robbery under the Indian Penal Code and have been remanded in police custody till November 19, the officers said.