Five held in Raviwar Peth murder case

PUNE: In a major breakthrough, the city crime branch on Monday arrested five people for allegedly gunning down Dilip Gujjar, proprietor of a courier firm. An employee of the firm, Kanjibhai Desai, was injured and a customer was robbed in the incident which took place in Raviwar Peth on September 26.
The suspects have been identified as Ajit Raju Nair (26) and Yashwant Ramchandra Vaidu (26), both residents of Panvel, Suyog Dilip Jambhure (24) of Mumbai, Zohaib Jameel Shaikh (19) of Mangalwar Peth and Sachin Chandrakant Dhumal of Dhairi.
Additional commissioner of police (crime) Anant Shinde said the police were working on various leads since the incident had taken place. Shinde said the suspects had admitted their involvement in the crime. A hunt has been launched to trace the three main suspects identified as Sadashiv Shetty, Sameer Shaikh and Dilip Thapa, he added.
Investigations have revealed that four of the suspects, who were armed, barged into the courier firm while one of them opened fire on Gujjar. The fifth suspect was waiting in a run-away car.
Shinde said investigations further revealed that the suspects had played an active role in at least 16 crimes like bank dacoities, robberies and looting courier firms in Pune, Mumbai, Kolhapur and Gujarat, between 1994 and 2001.
The suspects also confessed to their involvement in two other crimes a robbery in Pimpri and the dacoity at the State Bank of India, Ambegaon branch, earlier this year.
He further said that three of the suspects were picked up from Mumbai and the custody of Shaikh was obtained from the Yerawada central jail. Dhumal was arrested for providing shelter to the suspects at Dhayari. Two cars and a motorcycle have been recovered from them.
The police will conduct a probe to find out whether courier firms can deal in cash transactions, he added, and appealed to the public to contact the police if they have any information pertaining to the absconders either at the crime branch or the Faraskhana police station.