CAB DRIVER FLEES WITH ₹1L; COPS CONVINCE HIM TO RETURN CASH

THANE: A Latur resident who came to Mumbai to treat his ailing nephew was in for a shock when the bag with ₹1 lakh in cash he had saved for the treatment was robbed by a fleet cab driver while he was commuting from Panvel to Thane.

Within a couple of hours, the Kasarvadavali police traced the driver, convinced him to return and helped the man get the money back.

Ravikant Moholkar came to Navi Mumbai with his nephew and three other relatives. His nephew had a genetic disease, Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD), and needed transfusion, for which he was brought to Kamothe hospital for treatment.

They decided to stay at his sister’s house in Nalasopara after the treatment, and booked an app-based cab from Panvel. On reaching Kasarvadavali, they took a washroom break for few minutes and got down from the cab, leaving the bag in the cab at around 10.30pm on Wednesday.

The cab driver, Mohit Chaurasia, fled, leaving them behind.

Ravikant Moholkar said, “The driver was friendly, so we chatted with him and told him our ordeal. We kept the bag in the car as he seemed to be a good person. I also kept my shoes in the cab that he took along with the bag. He switched off his phone, so we reached Kasarvadavali police station. The police managed to get the bag back.”

API Mahesh Masurkar of Kasarvadavali police station shared, “My three colleagues and I immediately started to work on the case. We called the head office of the app aggregator, called the driver simultaneously and also started tracking his car. After an hour, we got in touch with him and talked to him over the phone and told him about the repercussions he could face if he didn’t return. He came back to the police station and handed over the bag to the family.”