MUMBAI: The Colaba police on Tuesday arrested an attempt-to-murder case accused who had been on the run for the past 48 years. The case against him was registered in 1977, after which he was initially arrested. However, he was soon released on bail and failed to attend any subsequent court dates.
The arrested accused, Chandrashekhar Madhukar Kalekar, 71, was a resident of Haji Kasam Chawl in Lalbaug. In 1977, he suspected his then girlfriend of being unfaithful in the relationship and allegedly stabbed her in Colaba.
According to Colaba police, Kalekar, who was 23 then, was arrested and eventually granted bail. However, after that, he failed to appear for court hearings. After sending several warrants against him, the court declared him a proclaimed offender. Various police teams had searched for the accused over the years but were unsuccessful as he had shifted to multiple places not long before Haji Kasam Chawl went into redevelopment.
Under the guidance of additional commissioner of police Abhinav Deshmukh and DCP Pravin Munde, a team headed by sub-inspector Sachin Taware reopened the case six months ago. They visited his house in Lalbaug and found that the chawl had been redeveloped. They were led to Santacruz, Goregaon, Badlapur, and then Mahim — places where they learnt Kalekar had shifted to, but did not have any clues after this. They even checked the voter list details as well, but did not find his name in any of the lists.
“We checked details with the RTO (Regional Transport Office), and court applications to find details of court cases and eventually found a criminal case registered against him at Dapoli police station,” said a police officer. They eventually traced him to Dapoli after finding records of his arrest in a 2015 criminal case where he injured another person while driving in Ratnagiri district.
“Now we have more details about him. However, we were unsure whether he stayed at the address given to the Dapoli police station. On Monday night, we visited the address given to us by the police station and found him in the house. He was surprised to see the Colaba police in his house after 48 years and had almost forgotten about the case,” said the officer.
“He was 23 when the alleged crime took place, and today he is 71. It is difficult to identify him as we only have his old photos. But when we interrogated him, he admitted to the crime,” he said, adding that the accused was produced before the trial court on Tuesday and remanded to judicial custody up to October 17.