Messages from a finance company on loan after purchasing a mobile phone led to the arrest of 57-year-old Indian who was absconding from United Kingdom since 2016 after being accused of five rape cases there.
The fugitive offender, identified as Palwinder Ubbi, was arrested by Navi Mumbai crime branch from Bhiwandi a week ago. During the time of his arrest, he was working as a driver for a multinational company.
Ubbi, who has claimed to the Navi Mumbai police that his family consisting of wife, a son and a daughter are settled in the UK, was reluctant to give details of any of his relatives in Mumbai to inform about his arrest.
He was notified as an INTERPOL accused and has been absconding from the UK since 2016. There are five rape cases in Great Britain and Northern Ireland against him.
As per the India-UK bilateral extradition treaty of 1993, the UK government had written to the Ministry of External Affairs, Central Government of India seeking extradition of the offender.
After following the protocol of the requests of extradition from MEA to Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and to various other departments, the request finally reached Navi Mumbai Commissioner of Police, Bipin Kumar Singh.
“The senior police inspector, Sunil Shinde, of unit I, crime branch, Navi Mumbai, was given the task of finding the accused,” Suresh Mengade, deputy commissioner of police, crime branch, said.
As per the data provided by the UK government, the passport of the fugitive had a Nerul address that was found to be not accessed after 2018 post the death of his mother. The address led to an old mobile number of the offender that was being used till 2019.
“We scrutinised the old number of the offender and found the possible contact numbers of his relatives. Using their current contact number, we zeroed in on a possible current contact number of the accused. What finally nailed him was the SMSes that the accused had received from the financial company about his loan that he took for purchasing a mobile phone,” Shinde said.
While keeping a tab of the suspicious numbers, the police found the SMS from the financial company, contacted the company for getting more details about the number and found his whereabouts to be in Bhiwandi and arrested him. After a transit remand from the local court, he was presented before the Patiala House Court, New Delhi, which handles cases pertaining to the Extradition Act and has been now remanded to judicial custody till June 25.