Man steals from Godrej’s kin, stays at 5-star hotels

MUMBAI: Gamdevi police on Thursday arrested a 41-year-old man for allegedly committing thefts at the Malabar Hill bungalow of Arvind Dubash, the sonin-law of industrialist Adi Godrej, on five occasions.

The police claim the accused, Chetan Thulkar, has around 22 house break-in cases filed against him in south Mumbai in the recent past.

According to the police, on January 8, Dubash’s family discovered that gold ornaments and cash collectively worth ₹3.38 lakh were stolen from the place of worship in their bungalow, Akashganga, located on Breach Candy Road. The family’s manager Pankaj Shirsagar lodged a complaint to the police and a first information report (FIR) was then filed.

The police interrogated the family’s domestic helps, but did not get any significant lead. They then discovered that the thief had entered through a window on the rear side of the bungalow.

“A CCTV camera installed at the coastal road construction site 150 metres away from the bungalow captured two suspects breaching the 15-foot-high boundary wall of the bungalow with the help of an adjoining tree. The duo got easy access to the window from the wall. They then removed the iron grills covering the window and entered the house,” said senior inspector R Rajbhar.

Meanwhile, the complainant informed us that there was a small camera installed near the area in the house where the ornaments were stolen from. The camera had captured the movements of two men, but their faces were not clearly visible. However, later we identified one of the suspects as Thulkar,” Rajbhar added.

The police learnt that Thulkar had left for Goa, where he stayed in an elite hotel for couple of days, returned to Mumbai and then travelled to his hometown in Hinghanghat at Wardha district. He then went to Nagpur where he stayed at another fivestar hotel. The police team was trying to track him, but Thulkar kept changing his mobile phones.

“From Nagpur, Thulkar went to visit his girlfriend in Kolkata and booked air ticket to Mumbai after two days. After he arrived at the airport to board a flight to Mumbai, he was nabbed and brought to the city,” said assistant inspector Sharad Gare.

Thulkar’s two accomplices too have been arrested in the case.