Rabale police have arrested a 30-year-old man for kidnapping and attempting to murder the husband of a woman he wanted to marry.
The police said the accused, Ganesh Prabhakar Valjhade, had proposed to his landlord’s daughter a year ago. When she spurned him and married Praveen Sopan Panmand (27), the accused planned to kill him.
The police said that Mr. Valjhade called Mr. Panmand and told him that he had been nominated for the Honda Shine Lucky Draw and stood a chance of winning a bike. Mr. Panmand was asked to bring his Aadhaar card and wait near Airoli station. Assistant Police Inspector Jyoti Gaikwad said, “On Friday evening, the accused met Mr. Panmand at the station and asked him to enter his car, a Mahindra Xylo, to sign a few papers. There were four other people in the vehicle. Mr. Panmand was told that they would have to drive to a nearby store to photocopy the Aadhaar card.”
When Mr. Panmand was offered sweets in the car to celebrate his nomination, he grew suspicious and threw them out of the car. One of the accused then tried to make him sniff chloroform. At that time, the vehicle got stuck in traffic between Vitava and Kalwa, and Mr. Panmand bolted out of the car and rushed to the nearest traffic police officer for help.
Kalwa traffic constables nabbed Mr. Valjhade and the driver, Deepak Suresh Wagh (28). The others — Shakeer Shaikh (22), Bunty Kale (20) and Nilesh (22) — managed to flee. The police have recovered from the accused a bag containing a bottle of chloroform, a plastic revolver, a rope, a cutter, coloured powder and sweets.
They were produced before the court on Saturday and remanded in custody till Monday. The police are investigating if Mr. Panmand’s wife was involved in the plot.
