6 held for highway robbery, murder confess to have committed similar crimes

They are held for the brutal murder of 46-year-old Nallasopara native Prakash Kadu.

The gang of six highway robbers, arrested earlier this month for the brutal murder of 46-year-old Nallasopara native Prakash Kadu and the robbery of his car, confessed to have committed a string of similar crimes by posing as hitchhikers on the National Highway 8, the Thane Rural police said on Monday.

Kadu (46), a driver with an Andheri based call centre, was found critically injured on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad stretch of the NH 8 on December 5, and before succumbing to his wounds, had given a statement describing the attack on him and the subsequent hijack of his vehicle. Based on his statement, the police started keeping a watch on people who seek lifts from vehicles on the highway in the early hours of the morning and went on to arrest the gang of six.

“The accused have confessed to have committed numerous crimes of this nature, and we have found evidence to establish their involvement in at least three such cases so far,” said an officer with the Thane Rural Police Crime Branch.

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Describing the modus operandi of the gang, the officer said, “The accused would stand on NH 8, dressed in formal clothes appearing desperate for a lift to Mumbai. Once successful in hitching a ride, they would wait for an opportune moment and then attack the driver using daggers and pistols, after which they would abandon the drivers and flee with the vehicles. Their appearance and their excuse, that they were late for work and needed help getting to office at the earliest, helped them to sell their lie. The fact that call centre drivers have a practice of dropping people for anything between Rs 10 to Rs 50 only worked in their favour.”

Kadu was seen by a watchman and rushed to the hospital. Before he died, he told the police that he had picked up three men at Nallasopara and was going to drop them at Dahisar, but was attacked on the way.

“In two previous incidents of a similar nature, the bodies of the victims were thrown between Vasai and Bhiwandi. We started keeping a watch on the highway and detained one of the six accused. His arrest led us to the other five,” said another officer. The police have recovered Kadu’s car from the gang and are conducting further inquiries.

megha.sood@expressindia.com

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crime
murder