After 18 days of armed robbery at a Kharghar jewellery shop, the Navi Mumbai crime branch has finally nabbed four people from Udaipur on Thursday. The cops made several trips to Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and other parts of Maharashtra besides the umpteen number of visits to Neral, Karjat and other local areas in search of leads.
Finally, the crime branch traced the accused to Udaipur and nabbed Mohammed Rizwan, 27, and Azhruddin Shaikh, 28, originally from Surat along with Taha Sindhi, 21, and Rajvir Kumavat, 20, from Rajasthan. Rizwan and Shaikh are history-sheeters. “They were involved in small-time smuggling of alcohol to the dry state of Gujarat. Their plan was to do something big and settle down with a lot of money,” said Additional Commissioner of Police Deepak Sakore.
Rizwan, Shaikh and Sindhi had been staying in Kharghar for the last six months as Rizwan's sister stayed there. Meanwhile, Kumawat, who is Taha's friend, stayed at Kamothe. The quartet often met each other at a tea stall in Kharghar, which was near BM jewellers located at Ekram Heritage, Sector 35. A month back, the accused came up with the idea to rob the jewellery shop to earn a good fortune for the rest of their lives. While Taha did the recee, the remaining three allegedly committed the robbery, said police.
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On July 28, the three accused wearing helmets entered the shop at around 10pm, fired a round and fled with 236 grams of gold ornaments worth Rs11.8 lakh. To disperse the crowd gathered outside, the accused again fired two rounds in the air and escaped.
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According to police, they were using a two-wheeler with no number plate and abandoned it at Nagpada. After hiding the firearms and the stolen booty in the vehicle's dickey, they all fled to Udaipur, said cops. “While some fled by train, others used a private car,” they added. Assistant Commissioner of Police Ajay Landge said, “By camping at various places for around 15 days, studying the CCTV footage, the teams cracked the case.”
The accused were brought to Navi Mumbai and remanded to police custody till August 22.