A couple of robbers, who robbed a company and allegedly murdered the security guard who tried to stop them in Dombivli, landed in the police net after they were caught on CCTV cameras fleeing in an auto rickshaw.
Manpada police traced the auto covered with posters that led them to the auto driver, who is also one of the accused, and his aide. The two have been arrested for the murder and robbery early on Thursday morning. Their third aide has also been traced by the Kalyan crime branch by afternoon. All the three arrested have been booked for murder of the 64-year-old watchman, Gyanbahadur Gurum. The fourth accused who was involved in the robbery is still absconding.
Gurum worked with Vijay Paper Product Mill in Manpada for over ten years and was known for his honesty. On Wednesday night, when Gurum was on night duty, the four accused entered the company by climbing a wall to steal some scrap materials.
According to police officials, Gurum heard noises and went to look inside, when the accused attacked him with rods and sharp weapons, and fled the spot with some copper and brass wires worth ₹1.50 lakh. They sold them to a Kalyan scrap dealer for ₹10,000 early on Thursday morning.
Meanwhile, the police checked the CCTV footage and found that the accused used an auto rickshaw for the crime that had a flashy poster of some news channel. The police started looking for such rickshaws at various stands.
Shekhar Bagade, senior police inspector, said, “Through some sources, we came to know that one of the rickshaws has the same poster but was torn by the driver. Immediately, we formed four teams to look for the driver and found one who was trying to flee after seeing our team. We arrested the driver, Tony D’Silva, 30, and the scrap dealer, Firoj Khan, 30.”
Meanwhile, the Kalyan Crime Branch traced Santosh Shirke, who had escaped in the auto with D’Silva after the murder.