Two under trials who befriended each other in jail got arrested on Thursday for jointly starting vehicle thefts in various parts of Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane. The accused identified as Ajay Rajkumar Matreja alias Lucky (33), a resident of Titwala and Kiran Ramdas Salekar (24), a resident of Ambernath were arrested from Ambernath and were found with possession of a stolen Activa (MH-46- AW-9262) from Kharghar. Later, around 32 bikes were recovered from various parts of city that the accused had stolen.
The accused were arrested in a drive that Navi Mumbai police has started in order to keep a tab on the under trials who get released from the jail. “It’s noticed that usually the history-sheeters who get released from jail get back to their criminal activity either by themselves or by getting a partner whom they would have befriended in jail. To keep a tab of the activities of such criminals we have started a drive to cross check what the accused who were released or bailed in last three years are up to. In one such investigation, we got the information about these two accused who have previous record of crime and now jointly started it again,” Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Nitin Kausdikar said.
“The accused had made a master key that could be used to start all kinds of bikes and scooters. The accused showed us a demo as well. They claim that they got it made from key makers. We have also seized few keys that belonged to the stolen bikes,” Joint Commissioner of the Police Prashant Burde said. The accused were nabbed by Senior Police Inspector Sandeepan Shinde and his team from Unit-I Crime Branch. “The accused had stolen bikes from Navi Mumbai, Mumbai and Thane and we recovered in all 32 bikes from Koparkhairane, Ghansoli, Kalyan and Mankhurd. All of them were parked at various parking lots,” Assistant Police Inspector Vikram Bansode from Unit-I Crime Branch said.
According to police, the accused Lucky is married and has a 4-year-old son, Salekar is unmarried and both the accused who were addicted to ganja, were into crime for earning quick money for the drugs. While lucky has a criminal record of 60 cases out of which 26 were bike thefts and 34 robbery cases, Salekar has a record of seven cases of highway robbery. Both the accused were in jail together for four years where they met and decided to start vehicle thefts after getting bailed out. Both were arrested under sections 379 and 34 of the IPC and have been remanded to police custody till June 30. “We have their custody and we hope to recover more bikes from them in the course of interrogation till June 30,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Tushar Doshi said.
