Pune: The Pune Rural police arrested the kingpin of an inter-state gang of burglars involved in stealing cash and gold jewellery collectively worth Rs68 lakh from a grocery store owner’s house in Khed’s Rajgurunagar on Jan 3. The accused was taken into custody with the help of CCTV footage. The gang, from Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh, used to travel to Maharashtra in a four-wheeler to commit crimes before fleeing back to their home state. Police recovered gold and silver jewellery, and a car, collectively worth Rs48 lakh, from the accused, Rizwan Shaikh (42) hailing from Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh but currently a resident of New Delhi. A search is on for his accomplices. In the early hours of Jan 3, some men broke into a 59-year-old grocer’s house, when the family was away in Akkalkot in Solapur district, and made off with Rs9.5lakh cash and gold jewellery, collectively worth Rs68 lakh. Superintendent of police (Pune rural), Sandeep Singh Gill, said that two teams of the local crime branch are on the lookout to trace the remaining accused. A white car was traced by one of the CCTV cameras near the spot. “The teams then checked CCTV footage on a 120km stretch of Pune-Nashik highway and managed to get clear photographs of the suspects,” Gill said. The officer said that police received information that the suspects involved in the burglary were from Uttar Pradesh. They used to travel by car from Uttar Pradesh to Maharashtra and returned to their home state after committing crimes. “We received information about Shaikh. Our teams went to Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, but Shaikh managed to escape,” the officer said. The SP said that the police were tracking Shaikh, who was on way to Mumbai from Gujarat. “We intercepted him on the Pune-Nashik highway recently and recovered gold jewellery and a car, collectively worth Rs48 lakh, from him,” the SP said. The officer said that Shaikh has cases against him in Pune, Kolhapur, Delhi and Gujarat. “Our investigations are on,” the officer said.
