Thief in daylight, gambler at night; arrested
The Kurar Police have arrested a 35-year-old thief, who broke into empty houses in broad daylight and decamped with cash and gold worth thousands of rupees.
Deepak Vaishya, an educated man, started breaking into houses to use the money for gambling. He was arrested after a 2-km chase and booked for house break-ins and thefts. Interestingly, Vaishya had spent a jail term for the same crime eight months ago.
On December 25, two houses in the jurisdiction of Kurar police station were broken into, which raised the suspicion of the two incidents being related to one another. When police began the probe, they scrutinised the CCTV camera footage, where a man dressed in a suit was seen near both the locations. Soon all the evidence pointed toward the ‘well dressed man’ and a week later, police received a tip-off that the accused seen in the video was to arrive at a gambling den, and the cops laid a trap near Govandi on December 31.
Police sent four teams and upon interception, the man tried to escape, but was caught after a brief filmy chase of 2 kilometers. Deepak Vaishya was arrested and booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code for house trespassing and theft. During interrogation, it was revealed that Vaishya was a graduate, who committed housebreak-ins and thefts to earn easy money. Vaishya, a resident of Govandi, had committed scores of house break-ins and robberies, for which he was also arrested and spent a jail term,” said police inspector Dhanesh Satardekar.
Eight months ago when Vaishya was released, he bounced back to his old days and began the thefts again. “Vaishya operated as a one man army and went to empty houses with equipments to break the locks. Since he was always well dressed and operated alone, he never came under the radar and only committed thefts in broad daylight,” added Satardekar.
Police are trying to ascertain how many more incidents of theft are registered against Vaishya. Currently, he has been sent to judicial custody at Thane jail.