To beat the heat, thieves decamp with ice cream - and deep-freezer- from Mumbai supermart!
Darpan News Desk IANS, 02 Jun, 2023 01:03 PM
Mumbai, June 2 (IANS) AIn a bizarre crime, two thieves allegedly stole a freezer and scores of kilos of ice-cream at the dead of the hot summer night from a closed supermart in Borivali suburb, a police official said on Friday.
The incident, which happened around 2 a.m. on May 28, came to light after a complaint by Jayesh R. Patel, owner of Daily Needs Grocery & Bakery in IC Colony supermart , north-west Mumbai and scanning the CCTV cameras there, said Senior Police Inspector Sudhir Kudalkar of MHB Police Station.
Immediately, Kudalkar set up a crack team comprising Akhilesh Bombe, Sandeep Gorde, Praveen Jopale, Arjun Aher, Ganesh Shermale, Sandeep Parit to solve the strange theft within barely three hours.
The CCTV footage showed two shop helpers - Omaram D. Rabaria, 24 and Votaram B. Meghwal, both residents of Nalasopara town in Palghar - helping a tempo worker to load the heavy freezer on the vehicle to deliver it to their home.
Though the supermart, in a densely populated residential neighbourhood, was closed at that dark hour, the furtive trio managed to quietly break it open.
They can be seen entering into the cold storage area from where they selected the old heavy duty Blue Star deep-freezer stacked with a large quantity of ice-creams intended for the supermart customers.
From the CCTV footage, the probe team tracked down the tempo to Vasai town and apprehended the driver who spilled the beans on the cool operation, and the police caught the accused duo based on their phone numbers shared with the transporter.
"We have recovered the deep-freezer worth around Rs 1.25 lakh and some packets of ice-creams of 33 varieties worth around Rs 20,000," said Kudalkar.
Meanwhile, videos of the "cold-blooded" theft at the height of a sweltering summer have gone viral on social media networks with many commenting at the cool-cat heist involving the deep-freezer instead of some other valuable stuff stocked in the supermart.
Describing women as the ones who decide the direction of the nation, the Prime Minister said in his video that the strength, education and skills of a daughter not only decide the direction of the family but also of society and the nation.
The gold biscuits were being smuggled from Manipur to the national capital via Guwahati. On Tuesday, 320 gm gold was seized by the railway police from the same railway station.
The police have arrested six persons in this connection, out of whom two are residents of Liluah in Howrah district, two are from Maharashtra and one from Gujarat. The police suspect that besides running the fake call centre, the arrested persons were also involved in illegal hawala transactions.
A forensic science lab team also reached the spot and inspected the suitcase and the spot where the body was found. The hands and the feet of the victim were tied with a rope, a police officer said, not ruling out the possibility of foul play in the case.
The officials said that some dreaded criminals were lodged in the same ward, adding that Sisodia has not raised any complaint in food or other things so far. Sisodia, who was arrested on February 26 in the Delhi excise policy case, was lodged in the cell on Monday after due formalities which included some medical tests.
Special public prosecutor (SPP) Amit Prasad argued the charges against Poonawala. It was submitted that the accused is a trained chef from Taj Hotel and is aware of preserving the flesh. Poonawala had also ordered dry ice, agarbatti etc. after killing Shraddha Walker, the police said.
