The two auto drivers would wait outside bars and target drunken customers; offering food laced with drugs, they would then rob the unconscious victims
While tracking the mysterious death of a 42-year-old, the police stumbled on two rogue auto rickshaw drivers, who would wait outside bars at night and rob drunken customers.
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Kamlesh Jain was an Andheri resident and ran an electronics shop in Kurla. On September 26, the accused had picked him and a friend up from outside a bar in Andheri
The ingenious crooks would offer their victims food spiked with drugs to make them drowsy, and later escape with their valuables. But their luck ran out when one of the victims failed to recover from the drugs and was found dead by the police.
On September 27, the Kurla police recovered the body of Kamlesh Jain (42) near Kurla depot at LBS road. They registered a case of accidental death, but since there were no valuables on his body, the cops suspected it was a robbery gone wrong.
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The police tracked down the Andheri resident’s phone and learnt that it was with his friend. This is when the plot began to unravel.
Plot unfolds
Kamlesh’s phone was with his friend, Vijay Mehta, who told the police how the two of them had gone drinking the night before.
“On September 26, we met in Andheri for a drink. The waiters at the bar asked us to leave at 2 am. We went outside and hired an auto to look for another bar that was open. When we didn’t find one, Kamlesh dropped me home and went on,” Vijay said in his statement.
He further told the police that Kamlesh was drunk and his phone had fallen out of his pocket repeteadly. To prevent it from getting damaged, Vijay kept the phone with him, but forgot to return it when he got out of the auto. When Kamlesh didn’t turn up at home, his brother called Vijay, who filed a missing complaint.
When the cops checked Kamlesh’s Call Detail Records (CDR), they noticed that he had received a missed call from an unidentified number after he went missing. It was with this number that they tracked down auto driver Omprakash Ramprasad Tiwari (37) and his friend, Munna Bhullam Jaiwal (35), who also drives an auto. Both live in Kalwa but ply their auto in the city.
After questioning them, the police learnt that it was their regular practice to target drunken people who they could drug and loot. They confessed to having done the same to Kamlesh, after which they stole cash and ornaments worth Rs 1.1 lakh from him.
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They also explained to the cops that when Kamlesh realised that his phone was missing, he asked one of them to lend him their phone. This is when he called his own number to try and locate the phone. The police registered a case under Sections 328 (causing hurt by means of poison) and 392 (robbery) of the Indian Penal Code.
Cop speak
An officer from Kurla police station said, “As there were no valuables on his body, we suspected that the deceased had been robbed. After we got his number, we zeroed in on the culprits and picked them up from Kalwa.
The accused had handed the deceased some sweet, due to which he fell unconscious and they robbed him. They left him near Kurla depot, but he did not recover from the drugged sweet, since he was also quite drunk.”
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