The Special Operations Group (SOG) of the city police on Friday arrested two persons in connection with the April 3 incident in which an entire SBI ATM containing Rs 21.38 lakh in cash was stolen from Maninagar area. Based on a tip-off,Hardik Harivadan Ginger,the alleged mastermind,and his aide Kamlesh Patel were nabbed from Paldi Bhatta. According to SOG officials,Hardik ran a call centre at Ashram Road and Vijay Crossroads and Kamlesh was his employee. Officials said they were looking for their five aides who have been identified as Jitu Solanki,Chirag Srimali,Lucky Yadav,Ankur and Karan. According to the SOG,Hardik,who is already facing extortion cases,had masterminded the plan to lift the ATM after he recently suffered losses in his BPO business. Kamlesh worked at one of the call centres owned by Hardik,besides at Across Ocean,another call centre at SG Highway. Inspector SM Chaudhary said,After he suffered losses,Hardik asked Kamlesh to help him out. Both hatched a plan to steal cash from ATMs in the city. Kamleshs house is near Dakshni Road and so they decided to target the SBI ATM in the vicinity. According to police,the gang came in a white Tata Sierra car GJ 2 A 5938. They first tried to break open the SBI ATM at Dakshini Road but when they failed,they lifted the entire machine and carried it away in the vehicle. The SOG claimed to have recovered the stolen ATM along with the cash on April 4 from a chawl in Maniyasa area near Maninagar. The chawl turned out to be of Kamleshs father Umashankar Patel and had been locked for the past few months. The house belonged to one Girish Namdar,who had rented it out to Umashankar. The police also recovered two tickets of Mount Abu and Rs 12,000 in cash from the arrested duo.
