Mumbai: Couple, watchman held for looting dozen computers from civic school

MUMBAI: Taking advantage of the lockdown, a couple teamed up with the

watchman

of a

civic school

in Malad (E) and looted 12 computers, besides CPUs and monitors.

Kurar police

arrested all three and recovered the entire loot.


"The school had limited resources and getting the computers back was very important for them," said detection officer

Dhanesh Satardekar

.

Like all schools, this civic school too had been holding online classes during lockdown. When the school's management discovered that a number of computer monitors were missing from the premises, they approached Kurar Police and lodged a complaint on December 9.

A preliminary probe revealed that the room where the computers were stored was locked. The accused must have managed to access the keys. Acting on this information, police began the investigation and enquired with people who had a key, including the watchman,

Shekhar Sawant

, 38. But Sawant said he was clueless.

Police scanned CCTV footage of establishments in the neighbourhood and noticed a couple with computer monitors on three different days. Through technical investigation, cops managed to track down the man captured on camera. He was identified as Hitesh Solanki, 28. Police arrested him from Kurar Village. Solanki's call data records revealed that he was in frequent touch with a woman named Ankita Jadhav.

"Solanki and Jadhav worked at a lawyer's office and were in a relationship. The couple often had liquor near the civic school and soon befriended Sawant who joined them for drinking. The couple gathered that Sawant was a watchman at the school and had keys to the computer room. A plan was hatched and a duplicate key was made for the crime," said Babasaheb Salunkhe, senior inspector, Kurar police station.

Jadhav, Solanki and Sawant were arrested on charges of break-in and theft. Police said that Solanki and Jadhav committed this crime to fund their drinking habit.