Surat: A 51-year-old construction labourer never imagined that the long arm of law would catch up with him a good three decades later for a ‘theft’ that he now denies having committed even then.
Be that as it may, even cops were stunned to find the man they had been hunting for so long waiting to be nabbed just a couple of kilometres away from the place of crime!
But Sardarsinh alias Satish Hussain Vasava, who was arrested from Majura Gate area by Athwalines police recently based on specific information, said he was on the run since March 22, 1990, more out of fear of reprisal than for any crime.
He was 20 years of age when he was accused by his employer of stealing Rs 29,440 in cash. Today, the youngest of Vasava’s three children is 20 years old! Vasava, who was later released on bail denied committing the crime and told the police that he got married while on the run and while his two sons work as labourers, his daughter is studying nursing.
According to case details, owner of textile firm in Vadi Faliya where Vasava worked then as a peon, Arvind Shah, had asked him to deposit the amount in the bank. However, the money got stolen from him in a bus and fearing that he would be held responsible for the theft, Vasava, who was barely a year into the job, ran away instead of informing his employer.
Incidentally, cops could trace Vasava purely through human intelligence. As part of its drive to catch offenders wanted in old cases, police started visiting their native places and reached Vasava’s wife at his native village in Narmada district who informed cops that he lives in the city now and works as a casual construction labourer.
“We were helped by a person known to Vasava as he has changed over years and arrested him,” said a police officer in Athwalines police station.