Nashik arms haul: 2 Amboli police officers suspended for not filing case of car theft

jayprakash.naidu@htlive.com

Two police sub-inspectors from Amboli police station were suspended on Friday for failing to register a case of vehicle theft earlier this month. Incidentally, the same jeep was seized by Nashik police last week after four men were arrested for carrying a huge cache of weapons in it. They had stolen the weapons from an armoury shop in Uttar Pradesh.

The vehicle, a Mahindra Bolero jeep, was seized last week on Friday on the Agra-Mumbai highway in Nashik (rural) after 25 rifles, including one machine gun, 19 revolvers, 44 guns and 4,136 live cartridges were recovered from it. The two officers from Amboli police suspended have been identified as Pramod Kate and Ganesh Devkatte.

On December 6, the jeep’s owner Firoz Mehboob Khan, 53, a vehicle dealer from Oshiwara, had approached the Amboli police station but was turned away by Devkatte, who asked him to come later.

When Khan went again a day later, Kate asked him to meet the first officer (Devkatte) in order to get the case registered.

Khan told HT, “My car was stolen from Lashkariya tower situated at 90 feet road near Lotus petrol pump in Oshiwara, Andheri (West) around 11:20pm on December 5.” After the arms seizure, Khan was asked to come to the police station on December 15 where an FIR was registered for car theft.

Soon after the arms haul was detected by Nashik rural police, an enquiry was ordered by Mumbai police. Kate and Devkatte were suspended following the enquiry.