Mumbai: To dodge the police and escape the prying eyes of CCTVs, an alleged chain snatcher sneaked into a public toilet after committing the crime and when he came out, he was a changed man – not abstractly, but visibly. According to the Matunga police, Abhasaheb Kamlakar, 28, snatched the gold chain worth Rs 1.46 lakh from his co-worker Bhima Kunchikurve. Both of them work as BMC’s contractual hospital cleaners.

On October 16, the complainant left the hospital at around 1.11pm. When she reached the Matunga Bazar area at the LBS Road, Kamlakar appeared out of nowhere while wearing a mask and snatched away the gold chain. After registering the FIR, senior Inspector Deepak Chavan formed a team, led by Police Sub-Inspector Vinod Patil. They started scanning the footage from the CCTVs mounted near the crime spot.

As per the information provided by Kunchikurve, the masked accused wore a red-coloured T-shirt. “We spotted the man (matching the description provided by the complainant), but that didn’t help us. The suspect was seen entering a public toilet. Subsequently, hours passed by, but there were no signs of him. He just disappeared somewhere,” said a police official. The cops finally zeroed in on the accused after watching the same footage several times. “We realised that he did come out of the toilet, just in a different form,” added the official.

After the crime, Kamlakar had thrown away his red t-shirt and wore a different outfit. “He was not carrying a bag or anything, so we didn’t suspect him to change clothes. Later, we realised it was all pre-planned by him. He had already stored a set of clothes at the public toilets in Matunga and Chinchpokli,” explained the official.

Interestingly, the accused changed his clothes twice and then went back to his workplace in Matunga. “He applied for a leave, saying he is going to his hometown in Sangli. We found this four days after the incident. We procured his home address and a team was sent there to look for him,” official said, adding that Kamlakar had pawned the gold chain to someone in his building and took the money. 

He was brought back to Mumbai and the ornament has been recovered as well. Arrested under the Indian Penal Code section 392 (punishment for robbery), the accused has been remanded to judicial custody. 

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