2 sons of cops held for stealing bikes

A five-member gang that allegedly stole two-wheelers in Mumbai east region and stuck ‘Mumbai police’ stickers on them to avoid arousing suspicion was arrested on Tuesday. Two of the arrested accused are sons of police constables.

Arol Luis Vegar (19) and Ganesh Bote (22), are the sons of police constables, and the other accused are identified as Tejas Anchal (23), Akshay Didhe (26) and Sachin Darekar (24). While Vegar is a BSc student and Bote an engineering student, the latter three work in a private company.

The Nehru Nagar police, which made the arrest, said, “On May 14, complainant Rohan Agarwal, (22), a resident of Kurla west, Sanjivani Nagar lost his bike

KTM RC 200 worth Rs 1,73,000 at night. On May 15 he came to Nehru Nagar police station and filed a complaint of bike theft. After which we started investigating the case and found out some clues.”

Investigation officer of the case, Pandurang Jadhav said, “After searching CCTV footages and through sources we got clue that Tejas had brought a new KTM bike recently. We laid a trap and arrested him. Meanwhile he and his other friends had modified the bike by changing its silencer and number plate. We arrested Tejas from Pant Nagar and during interrogation he revealed the names of others and their modus operandi too.”

“They used to rob bikes, modify them by changing the colour and some parts and then stick the sticker of Mumbai police on the bikes, so that no one would doubt it,” Mr Jhadhav said.

“Secondly, they told police during investigation that they committed the crime because they like high range bikes and their parents were not letting them buy them. So they told their parents that they did some work and out of that salary they had bought such high range bikes,” the officer added.

The police said the gang distributed work among itself, and Anchal, Vegar and Bote would roam around crowded areas in Mumbai on bikes and after identifying those with unlocked handles, would tow them away manually. They also made duplicate keys with the help of a key maker to rob some bikes in particular.

Zone 6 DCP Shahaji Umap said, “We are searching for that key maker. The accused had been operating for the past seven months and robbed two bullet bikes, two Activa, a Karizma, an Avenger and a KTM. The police recovered all bikes from them and arrested all of them under sections 379 (theft) and 34 (when a criminal act is done by several persons in furtherance of the common intention of all, each of such persons is liable for that act in the same manner as if it were done by him alone).”