The Malabar Hill police has arrested the driver of state irrigation minister Sunil Tatkare for allegedly stealing an expensive cellphone belonging to his employer’s daughter. The police has recovered the stolen phone from the possession of the accused. The accused has been identified as 33-year-old Thane resident Manoj Gagansingh Ukheda, who had earlier worked as a driver for the minister’s father for five years. He had been serving the Tatkare family for the past three months. Ukheda has been arrested for stealing Mr Tatkare’s daughter Vidya’s cellphone,”, confirmed PI Vinod Kamble of Malabar Hill police station. According to the police, the theft took place on the evening of July 7 this year, at the minister’s official residence, Meghdoot bungalow, at Narayan Dabholkar Marg in Malabar Hill. The theft was reported to the police by Deepak Ramchandra Jagtap, 30, who works as a telephone operator at Mr Tatkare’s residence. An officer from the Malabar Hill police station said, “Jagtap, in his statement to police, said that Vidya had kept her Samsung Galaxy Note II cellphone on a table in her house. After a while, she noticed that her phone was missing. She looked for her phone, but couldn’t find it. Jagtap was then informed about the incident and he registered the complaint with the police.” “We were trying to track the cellphone, but found it switched off. Recently, the accused switched on the phone and with the help of technical expertise, we tracked down the phone and obtained its details. Ukheda was then arrested a few days ago. He directed the investigators to his sister’s place in Wadala where he had kept the stolen phone and subsequently, the phone was recovered,” said a police source. “Jagtap did not flee after committing the crime to avoid suspicion, and kept the stolen phone switched off for over two months to avert his arrest,” said another officer.
