Mumbai, Wednesday, 10: The Matunga police have arrested a 52-year-old man from Meerut city in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly drugging and robbing a Pune-based man travelling to Mumbai in a Shivneri bus.
According to the police, the incident happened June 14, when the victim Shailendra Sathe (57), a resident of Baner, Pune, was travelling to Mumbai for work purposes. During the bus journey, a person sitting next to Sathe initiated a conversation with him. The bus he was traveling, via the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, halted midway at Khalapur Food Mall for a short break.
Sathe said he didn’t want to get down, but the man sitting beside him went out and when he returned, he brought two cups of coffee while offering one to him. Subsequently, he felt a prick on his left arm, like the sensation of getting an injection. Soon later, Sathe lost his consciousness.
He was taken to the hospital by the locals and bus officials at Dadar bus depot, and it took him four days to wake up again. The doctors informed Sathe that he had been injected with a drug.
Sathe was carrying gold jewellery worth Rs. 3.25 lakhs which was missing, along with a mobile phone and his security documents. The Khopoli police in Raigad district first took up the matter and then transferred it to Matunga police who began the probe.
Senior police inspector Deepak Chavan made a special team PI Sanjay Pardeshi, consisting of API Santosh Mali, and others who flung into action, first by looking for the suspect’s face using the CCTV cameras installed inside the bus, Khalapur food mall, Dadar bus depot, Mumbai Central, and others. Subsequently, the technical team started looking into Sathe’s missing phone, location and other details. Police also obtained the CDR and SDR of the mobile number which suggested the location somewhere in Meerut, UP.
The team went to the location with the assistance of the local police when they found out that the accused - Yunus Shaikh (52) had a long list of criminal cases against him including murder, attempt to murder, rioting and even smuggling of drugs in Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. After three days of intense search, Shaikh was nabbed and presented in front of the magistrate court for a transit remand.
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Shaikh is currently with the Matunga police in custody and the attempts to recover stolen properties are underway. During the interrogation, it was known that Shaikh had a partner-in-crime, for whom a parallel investigation had been launched by the police.
