Mumbai Crime: Cop accused of looting Rs 40 lakh jewellery from shop during raid

The Crime Branch is probing a senior inspector after a jeweller alleged that the officer who was earlier posted at Kalachowki police station looted valuables worth Rs 40 lakh under the pretext of a raid at his Sakinaka shop The investigation against Sudhakar Shirsat now the senior PI at Juhu police station began after the jeweller complained to Police Commissioner Sanjay PandeyAnand Rana the owner of Sourav Jewellers said Sirsath and his team barged into his shop on December 15 2021 after he purchased gold jewellery worth Rs 15 lakh from a certain Anil Rajbhar who later turned out to be a thiefldquoSix policemen entered my shop along with a blindfolded man who was later identified as Anil Rajbhar They made Rajbhar confront me and I accepted that he sold gold jewellery to me as he needed money for the treatment of his ailing fatherrdquo said Rana 45 He said he had no idea that the jewellery was stolenThe vehicle that the raid team came inldquoAfter cops made Rajbhar sit in the police van Sirsath asked his men to remove all the heavy pieces of jewellery kept on display He then asked his men to remove the DVR digital video recorder so that their loot cannot be recorded in the CCTV cameras at my shoprdquo Rana allegedThe jeweller said Sirsath asked his team to put all the jewellery in a bag ldquoThey have taken away about 15 kg gold and 35 kg silver worth Rs 73 lakh while they showed only gold jewellery of 650 grams worth Rs 33 lakh on paperrdquo he saidRana said he was taken to Kalachowki police station after the raid ldquoOn the way to the police station I heard Shirsat talking over the phone with someone saying lsquomera kaam ho gaya ab isko melt karna hairsquordquo he Rana The jewller said he learnt through RTI that Shirsat had not informed the local police station about the raidldquoMy wife had to run from pillar to post to know my whereabouts as the cops did not inform her or my relatives after I was taken to Kalachowki police station My family and neighbouring shop owners initially thought that someone had kidnapped me and looted the shoprdquo Rana saidValuables at Ranarsquos shopThe jeweller said his wife first approached the Sakinaka police who had no idea about the raid ldquoSomehow the Sakinaka police learnt that I have been arrested by the Kalachowki policerdquo he saidThe jeweller said he was produced in the Sewree court which remanded him in police custody for 4 days He said the cops made him sign on a piece of paper but did not allow him to read it ldquoIn the evening they put me in a lockup at Mulundrdquo Rana saidThe jeweller said he was again taken to Kalachowki police station on December 17 and was made to sit there the whole day ldquoAt 930 pm one PSI asked me to undersign a paper Again I was not allowed to read the contentrdquoldquoLater I learnt that I had been booked in a fresh case And after my fourday police remand completed in the first case the same set of cops arrested me in this fresh case which was completely falsehelliprdquo he addedSudhakar Shirsat was then posted at Kalachowki police station right Shop owner Anand Rana said Shirsat didnrsquot inform local police about the raidRana was released on bail on January 5 Since then he has written to the chief minister home minister BMC chief and others ldquoBut my complaints went unnoticedrdquoldquoIn February I met the Joint Commissioner of Police Law amp Order Vishwas Nagre Patil who asked me to meet his office staff but nothing happened On March 3 I met Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey at his officerdquo said RanaldquoAfter patiently hearing me the commissioner asked his office to call Shirsat who rushed to his office But he refused to accept the offence which he committed at my shop in connivance with his team membersrdquo said RanaThe jeweller said his shop has remained shut since the raid as the valuables and the keys have been taken by Shirsat and his team ldquoNo panchnama has been conductedhellipthings are kept helterskelter and the entire shop must be in a messy conditionhellipbut Shirsat shrugged off saying that he does not know where the keys arerdquo Rana saidEven Pandey was not convinced with the ldquovaguerdquo response of Shirsat Rana said ldquoIt was the reason he asked the Joint CP Crime Milind Bharambe to look into the matter The Crime Branch chief has asked Unit 4 to investigate the serious matterrdquo Rana saidldquoHow can police confiscate the entire pieces of jewellery of my shop but show the seizure in minimal Where are my hardearned pieces of jewellery How will I run my house Who all distributed theserdquo he askedlsquoBaseless allegationsrsquoShirsat said rejected the charges He said ldquoAll the allegations made by Rana are baseless He was arrested in a case and we recovered around 650 grams of stolen gold jewellery from his possessionrdquoA source in the Crime Branch told midday ldquoWe have been carrying out an investigation to connect the dots The allegations are serious in nature We have recorded the statements of more than two dozen people including the local shop owners and vendorsrdquoldquoWe have also recorded the statements of police officers who conducted the raid and submitted a preliminary probe report to senior officers on March 6rdquo added the Crime Branch officer requesting anonymityRs 75 lakhValue of jewellery taken away as per jeweller Anand RanaRs 33 lakhValue of the jewellery shown in police records