4 in vehicle rob man of cellphone

Pune: An autorickshaw driver, along with his three accomplices, hit the arm of a 33-year-old man with a stick and fled with his cellphone worth Rs8,000 in the early hours of Wednesday.

The man, Sharad Jadhav of Malegaon in Nashik district, suffered fractures on his left arm. He lodged a complaint with the Bhosari police after receiving treatment later on Wednesday. The robbery occurred in Phugewadi around 4.15am when Jadhav was on his way to his brother’s house after deborading a bus.

“An autorickshaw driver stopped his vehicle and offered Jadhav a drop. There were three other men in the autorickshaw,” inspector Jitendra Kadam of the Bhosari police told TOI.

The officer said Jadhav refused the autorickshaw driver’s offer and continued walking. “The vehicle followed Jadhav and stopped near him. One of the men in the atorickshaw hit Jadhav’s arm with a stick, while another man snatched his cellphone. The vehicle then hurriedly drove away from the spot,” Kadam said.