Solving Crime: How Mumbai police traced an absconder in a cheating case after 27 years

“Sanghvi had claimed that he would help him in buying shares of different companies. He took Rs 20 lakh from the complainant and later handed over forged share transfer certificates,” a police officer from the D B Marg police station said.

After Khandelwal learnt that he had been duped, he lodged a police complaint. A case was registered and Sanghvi was arrested by the D B Marg police in 1995. “He remained in jail for one-and-a-half years. However, after stepping out, he stopped going for court hearings after which he was declared as an absconder,” a police officer said.

The Mumbai police recently launched a special drive to trace and arrest absconders. As part of this initiative, a police team comprising Assistant Police Inspector Anil Rokde, Police Sub-Inspectors Nitin Zade and Uttam Kangne and constables Dange, Bhiungade, Bagal, Munna Singh and Chavan was assigned the task of tracing Sanghvi.

The police first checked Sanghvi’s address as mentioned in their official records. “A team was sent to his Sion address that was noted in the documents at the time of his arrest in 1995. We enquired with people staying there but very few people were aware of who Sanghvi was. No one could help with any lead on him,” an officer said.

The police then decided to check the Mumbai voters’ list available online. “We found that there was only one person named Virendra Pravinchandra Sanghvi in the whole list. As per the list, he was staying at Siddharth Colony in Chembur, following which we went there but found that the accused had sold that flat,” the officer said.

The police conducted enquiries with the locals and managed to take some of them in confidence. “We got information that Sanghvi was currently living in the Dongri area and a local also helped us get his mobile number,” the officer added.

After scrutinising the call data records, the police learnt that Sanghvi, now 68, had received multiple messages from a cooperative bank. Accordingly, a team was sent to the bank which confirmed that Sanghvi was an account holder there.

Subsequently, the police learnt that Sanghvi was staying at Dana Bunder in South Mumbai. “When we went there, we learnt that he had given the house on rent after which we posed as BEST electricity employees and forced him to come to the house under the pretext of conducting ‘light bill verification’,” a police officer said. “Sanghvi was reluctant to come as he claimed that he was paying his bills on time but we pressured him to come by claiming that the electricity supply to his house will be disconnected due to which he agreed,” the officer added.

As soon as he arrived at his house on Tuesday morning, Sanghvi was arrested. A day later, he was produced in court on Wednesday and remanded in judicial custody.