IN A significant breakthrough, a team of Unit-01 of the Crime Branch detected as many as 10 house break-ins reported from Sonegaon, Rana Pratap Nagar and Ajni areas in the recent past by nabbing a hardened burglar. Cops recovered stolen gold ornaments, silver ornaments, foreign currency, cash, a motorcycle, a moped, and other valuables collectively worth over Rs 44.61 lakh from his possession. Police also seized a moped and a cellphone used by him for committing the burglaries. Identified as Amol Mahadeo Raut (34), the accused is a resident of Plot No 14, Ward No 1, Borkute Layout, Butibori. Six sensational house break-ins thefts from Sonegaon, three from Rana Pratap Nagar and one from Ajni areas were reported recently in which cash and valuables collectively worth lakhs of rupees were stolen. Amol Raut, who is bald, used to wear a full-face helmet to hide his identity while stealing cash and valuables from the houses. While fleeing with the booty, he used to take away the digital video recorders (DVR) from the houses where CCTV cameras were installed.

 

A team of Unit-01 of the Crime Branch comprising PI Suhas Choudhary, API Rajendra Gupta, API Praveen Mahamuni, API Sachin Bhonde, constabulary staff comprising Baban Raut, Vinod Deshmukh, Nitin Wasnik, Sunit Gujar, Manoj Tekam, Sushant Solanke, Hemant Lonare, Sharad Chambhare, Sonu Bhawre, Yogesh Wasnik, Ritesh Tumdam, Shivshankar Rothe, Ravi Raut, Nitin Bopulkar, Yogesh Selukar, Chandrashekhar Bharti and Ravindra Khedkar started investigating the cases and checked the footage of CCTV cameras at City Operation Centre (CoC) and identified the accused, Amol Raut on the basis of the registration number of his moped.

 

After verification of the crime records, the accused turned out to be a history-sheeter. Several cases were registered against the prowler Raut at different police stations. The Unit-01 team laid a trap and took Raut into custody. The team then recovered stolen gold ornaments (65 tolas ) worth Rs 34.65 lakh, silver ornaments (63 tolas) worth Rs 59,950, Rs 6.92 lakh cash, 280 US dollars, a wrist watch valued at Rs 5000, a cellphone worth Rs 20,000, two stolen two-wheelers worth Rs 1.20 lakh and a moped worth Rs one lakh which he used for committing the burglaries. Commissioner of Police (CP) Amitesh Kumar has announced a cash reward of Rs 50,000 to the entire team of Unit-01 for detecting the sensational house-breaking thefts. The arrest and recovery of stolen cash and valuables were made by the team under the supervision of CP Kumar, Jt CP Aswati Dorje, Additional CP (Crime)Sanjay Patil and DCP (Detection) Mummaka Sudarshan.