The accused, a Mulund resident, used to change IMEI numbers of the stolen phones so that the handsets could not be traced, and sell them at his shop in Thane
The Mulund police have arrested a mobile shop owner who would break into rivals’ shops and steal mobiles. The accused, who had a shop in Thane, would even change the IMEI numbers of these cell phones and sell them in his own shop.
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Mangesh Gaikar (left) used to change the IMEI numbers of the stolen cell phones he used to sell out of his Thane shop. The racket was busted after one of Gaikar’s employees, Chirag Parmar (right), confessed to the crime. Pics/Rajesh Gupta
The cops arrested the accused and his employee last week following which they were successful in recovering several mobile handsets. All of the accused’s crimes were committed in Mulund.
According to the police officials, on the basis of suspicion, they had initially nabbed the owner Mangesh Anand Gaikar (29) from his Mulund residence and as he didn’t own up to his crimes, the cops picked up his employee Chirag Raman Parmar (26).
An officer from the Mulund police station said, “We had obtained the CCTV footage from the mobile shop which they had broken in two months ago. Later, as the people in the footage looked familiar, we picked up the mobile shop owner, and as he didn’t reveal the facts, his employee Parmar was nabbed.”
Devious operandi
During the course of the investigations, the employee Parmar confessed to the crime and revealed that they had decided to steal mobiles from their rivals’ shops as they had incurred heavy losses. Besides, cops learnt that Gaikar is a history-sheeter.
“On July 1, Gaikar started a shop named Disha Telecom Mobile in Thane and told his employee that their mobile shop has been incurring losses, so he convinced his employee and targeted the shop Darshan Mobile Phone which is at Devidayal Road in Mulund where customers would regularly buy mobile phones. So they decided to victimise its owner and steal valuables from his shop,” added the officer.
The accused has been booked under sections 454 (lurking house-trespass or house-breaking in order to commit offence punishable with imprisonment), 457 (lurking house-trespass or house-breaking by night in order to commit offence punishable with imprisonment), 380 (theft in a dwelling house, etc) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code. They were produced in court and have been remanded in judicial custody.
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