Woman robs in-laws’ house with boyfriend

They managed to steal items worth Rs 1.74 crore before the theft was discovered

Awoman with her alleged boyfriend robbed the house of her husband and in-laws in Bibwewadi, managing to get away with items with a total value of Rs 1.74 crore.

Bibwewadi police have registered a case against the two and managed to arrest the woman who was produced in court on Saturday. The court has ordered police custody till June 9. Her male accomplice is still absconding.

According to information given by the police, the case was filed by 33-year-old Akshay Dilip Bhandari. After registering the case, police arrested the woman, identified as Mrunal Amar Bhandari. The cops have launched a search to find her friend Aniket Bubane who is also an accused in the case.

The theft occurred in flat no. 1, Gayatri Apartments in Lokesh Society where Akshay lives in with his joint family. His brother Amar Bhandari is married to Mrunal. The complainant has a spice business with a spice factory in Chakan. The profits earned from the business were converted into cash and jewellery by the complainant who stored it in a bag in the cupboard of the house.

Mrunal and Bubane did not commit the robbery in one go. Instead, they slowly siphoned off the cash and jewellery in small quantities over a period of a year. By the time the theft was discovered, the accused had stolen Rs 1.68 crore in cash and gold jewellery worth Rs 6.40 lakh.

Once the theft was discovered, the family decided to not approach the police initially. They decided to keep the matter internal to try and maintain the dignity of the family. With Mrunal, they tried tracing her accomplice Bubane. After failing to locate him anywhere, they decided to go to the police and Akshay came to the police station and filed a complaint.

Senior police inspector Kumar Ghadge said, “Bubane and Mrunal had an affair before marriage but her family members did not give them permission to marry each other. Instead, Mrunal married Amar Bhandari in 2016. She told the police in interrogation that she and Bubane had been having an affair since 2013. Their plan was that after stealing a large amount of money, they would flee to another country. Bubane has also been booked in other cheating cases in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.”

The FIR states, “The complainant went to his factory in Chakan on June 3. While he was there, his wife called him and informed him about the robbery in the house. The complainant immediately went home and found cash and gold jewellery missing from the locker inside the cupboard in his home. There were no marks of forceful entry in the house, due to which he suspected family members were involved. After questioning all the inhabitants of the house, everyone suspected Mrunal. The complainant too felt that that she was hiding something. He asked his wife to question her and Mrunal confessed to her involvement with the crime and revealed everything about her plan with Bubane. She told her that on May 31, when the entire family went to Kothrud to a relative’s house, she had left a key in the shoe rack for Bubane. After everyone left, he entered the house using the key from the shoe rack and managed to get in the locker to steal cash and jewellery.”

Ghadge said, “The main accused is absconding and our team is searching for him. The complainant had installed a CCTV camera outside the house. When they checked the footage, they find out that someone changed the direction of the camera and even turned it off. We saw the accused woman’s hand in the footage trying to change the direction of the camera. Under sections 380 (theft), 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), a case has been registered.”