Cops arrest five from Vapi in connection with highway dacoity

The Thane District Rural police claimed to have solved a major highway dacoity case involving theft of goods worth Rs 24 lakh today, after the arrest of five people who are residents of the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) area in Vapi, in Gujarat state.
Senior police inspector of the Local Crime Branch (Thane Rural) Kishore Khairnar told PTI that on the night of August 12, a gang of dacoits waylaid a tempo carrying copper wire near Pachwad village on the Bombay-Ahmedabad highway near Talasari and allegedly looted five tonne of wires worth Rs 24 lakh, along with the tempo.

Gang members who arrived in a four-wheeler, dumped the driver of the tempo in it and later abanadoned him in the woods.
The Talasari police had registered an offence under Section 392 of the Indian Penal Code, the police said.
The crime branch of the Thane Rural police which was given the task of tracing the dacoits suspected that one Manish Savji Patel alias Narayan (33), who was released on bail and residing in Mira Road was behind the crime.
After the police interrogated him, it was revealed that he had indeed carried out the dacoity along with others, who were traced and arrested.

They were identified as Raju Ramesh Patel (24), Gotulal Icchogalal Gujjar (23), Manohar Amarchand Gujjar (24), and Prabhulal Viramji Gujjar (22), the police said.
The police seized stolen goods worth Rs 23 lakh as well as a car used in the dacoity and the tempo which carried the consignment, from gang members, the police said.