₹1.56-cr ATM heist at Dharavi: 3 arrested, ₹15.42 lakh recovered

:The Dharavi police have arrested three persons in connection with the ATM heist where unidentified men had stolen Rs1.56 crore from a cash van parked outside a State Bank of India (SBI) ATM in Dharavi on Thursday.

They are currently hunting 11 other accused who were involved in the robbery. The arrested accused have been identified as Suresh Kumar Pandurang, Arumugam Subramani Sherve and Kamla Nagraj Devendra. They were nabbed from Satara while they were fleeing to Bangalore. The police have recovered Rs15.42 lakh from them.

An officer from Dharavi police station requesting anonymity said, “One of the arrested accused, Devendra, was the handler of the group. She managed to get together around four groups of petty criminals and stole the money.”

One of the three accused, Pandurang, was a repeat offender and had a case of robbery registered with the Khar police station. The police suspected his involvement in the incident and nabbed him and two others at Satara.

The officer said, “The accused were trying to flee to Bangalore with the money. We caught them mid-way from Satara.”

Deputy commissioner of police Pravin Padwal said, “After came to know that they were carrying cash, a team was sent after the bus that they were travelling in. The team stopped the bus, nabbed the accused and brought them to Mumbai.”

The accused have been booked for robbery and remanded to police custody. The police sus pects that the other accused may have fled to Tamil Nadu and a team has been sent to trace and arrest them.