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Journalism of Courage
AFTER FINISHING their dinner around 10 pm on January 28 in 2021, nine members from related families of two farmers Kerba Bhosle and Dilip Patil went to sleep in Patil’s house in Gawade Vasti hamlet of Karegaon village near Ranjangaon in Pune district. They had a full day of work planned on their fields starting the next morning.
Around 1.30 am Kerba and his wife Mahananda, woke up to screams. A gang of armed men who had their faces covered had entered the house. The gang was beating up Dilip and his wife Vidya with wooden sticks and iron rods. They had snatched Vidya’s gold mangalsutra and her earrings. As Vidya resisted, one of the robbers lifted her up and slammed her onto the ground causing multiple serious injuries.
Moments later they attacked Kerba and Mahananda and snatched her mangalsutra and earrings made of gold. By around 2.30 pm, when the armed men finally fled, they had left five people — including two women from the two families — badly injured. The women were left with torn earlobes and men with broken teeth and blows of wooden sticks and metal rods. The gang escaped with ancestral gold and silver ornaments belonging to the women.
But in the chaos, one of the robbers who was wearing a red shirt made a fatal mistake — his face cover slipped as he tore the gold from Mahananda, giving Kerba a clear look at him. Considering the seriousness then Superintendent of Police Abhinav Deshmukh formed four teams from Ranjangaon police station and Local Crime Branch. As the teams thoroughly scanned the crime scene and premises, they found multiple abandoned chappals — the footwear suspected to have been left behind by the robbers while leaving in a hurry.
The police subsequently roped in a sketch artist, and with the help of the description given by Kerba, a sketch of the suspect was prepared. After receiving the sketches from the artist, the investigators cross-referenced it with our database of criminals on police records. Further investigating the list with the help of technical data, the police narrowed down the suspect pool to five.
At this point in the investigation, police decided to take help of police dog Siba, trained for crime investigation. She was two years old at the time and had joined the service of Pune Rural police just six months prior. For definitive final identification, along with the five persons from the narrowed down suspect pool, police added five more persons of their own for the identification parade, making it a pool of ten. With the help of the smell of the chappals left behind, Siba quickly pointed to two of the persons and was rewarded with her favourite treat after successful identification of the suspects.
Upon further investigation and questioning, police confirmed the role of two brothers — Deepak Manchakya Bhosale (23) and his younger brother Suraj (20) — in the armed dacoity and they were placed under arrest. The questioning of the two brothers led police to arrest Mahesh Mangesh Kale and Akshy Nitin Kale. The trial against the four suspects is currently on.
Siba, a doberman who is now six years old, joined active duty in the dog squad of Pune rural police in mid 2020. She was recruited in force at the age of two months and after spending two months of handler familiarisation and basic training module she joined the specialisation module. After finishing her nine month long specialised training in crime investigation at the police dog training school of the Criminal Investigation Department in Pune. Siba continues to be in active duty with two full-time handlers police constables Ganesh Phapale and Baburao Chaudhari, who have been with her since her recruitment in the force.
In her active police career spanning more than five years Siba has helped police in getting crucial clues in several serious crimes including a murder and a case in which a woman was sexually assaulted and was brutally injured in the eyes in an attempt to stop the attacker.
