A civil engineer was arrested after he was caught red-handed while trying to break open an ATM in Uran in the early hours of Thursday.
Constables Santosh Jagdale and Ratan Rathod of Uran police station were on patrol duty when they saw suspicious activity inside an Bank of India ATM booth with the shutter half down. When the constables tried to enter, the person inside resisted and did not allow them to open the door. The constables then called for more police personnel.
Assistant police inspector Vrushali Pawar and his team nabbed the man who was identified as Vikrant Mokal (22), a resident of Ranjanpada in Uran.
“He is a civil engineer and works in a private company. He had brought a grinder machine from his company to pry open the ATM. By the time we reached, only the area where the cash is kept was to be cut,” senior police inspector Jagdish Kulkarni, Uran police station, said.
Ms. Pawar said he had initially lied that he did not have parents, but they found out about his family.
“He earns around ₹20,000 per month. Till now we have not found anything concrete for which he decided to commit the crime. There seems to be no criminal record of the accused as of now, but we are investigating,” she said.
He was arrested under Sections 380 (theft in dwelling house), 454 (lurking house-trespass or house-breaking in order to commit offence), and 427 (mischief causing damage) of the Indian Penal Code. The accused has been remanded in police custody till February 10.