Deepak Jog award goes to senior inspector Bhosale

mumbai: senior inspector praful bhosale of the crime branch was on friday given the deepak jog memorial trophy for the `best detection officer' of 2000-01. mr bhosale was selected for cracking the sensational case of dacoity in which ornaments worth rs one crore were looted from the b.a. shah and bros.jewellery shop at gayatri dham shopping centre, ghatkopar (east), on october 24, 2000. mr bhosale, along with a team of officers comprising assistant police inspector dilip sawant and sub-inspector hemant desai, had arrested the ten accused persons within a month and recovered stolen booty worth rs 85 lakhs from them. on october 24, six dacoits entered the jewellery shop at 2 pm posing as officers of the directorate of revenue intelligence (dri). they flashed fake id-cards, search warrants and spoke fluent english. they confined the owner and staff to the strong room and decamped with jewellery worth rs one crore. when the owner suspected foul play, one of the dacoits even attacked him with a chopper. when the local police failed to make headway in the case, the crime branch formed a special team under the supervision of mr bhosale to detect the case. acting on a tip-off, mr bhosale arrested five persons on november 13, 2000. they were kinit amin alias doctor (40), a mbbs dropout, pravin goswami (45), an alleged drug trafficker, geeta parmar (39), devendra maru (25) and mohammed khan (22). their interrogation led the police to jayesh mehta, an employee at the jewellery shop who had reportedly assisted the dacoits in the crime. the police subsequently arrested four others, later identified as kishore padaya, noorjahan shaikh (40), sakira khan (30) and surendrasingh punjabi (48). the police recovered choppers, nylon ropes, adhesive tapes, fake id-cards, search warrants and other incriminating articles from them. it is learnt that the accused persons are still in judicial custody as their bail applications have been rejected by the city civil and sessions court. ``as an investigating officer, mr bhosale has done a splendid job,'' deputy commissioner (crime) pradeep sawant said. the modus operandi in the pant nagar dacoity was similar to the tribhovandas zaveri incident in the late eighties, when a cheat posing as a cbi officer had decamped with jewellery from the shop at charni road. during the award ceremony, former director-general of police suryakant jog, father of the late policeman deepak jog, also awarded scholarships to the children of policemen who had died while on duty. ``for the past four years, we have given annual scholarship of rs 1,000 each to 20 children to cover their educational expenses,'' mr jog said. the awards function was attended by state director general of police subhash malhotra, police commissioner m.n. singh, cbi joint director d. sivanandhan and several serving and retired police officers.