Rs 18L gold theft from Mumbai-M'luru bus: Cops track vehicle through FASTag, nab accused at toll gate in Maha

Police investigating the theft of Rs 18 lakh gold from a Mangaluru-bound bus, on June 16, when it was parked for a lunch break arrested four persons with help of Maharashtra police at Sonagir tollgate of Dube district.

The accused — Aliban (31), Amzal Khan (35), Iqrar (30) and Gopal Amlavar (35) were headed toward Madhya Pradesh at the time of their arrest. A court has remanded them to five days of police custody.

The victim, a gold trader had filed a case with Byndoor police stating that few strangers had boarded the bus when it was parked for lunch. As the bus was empty, they took advantage of the situation and decamped with the bag containing Rs 18 lakh worth of gold and fled the spot in a White Maruti Breeza car. They had even tampered with the registration number of the car so that police could not trace them.

Two teams formed by the police to investigate the case found that the accused had gone towards Shivamogga in the car using fake registration numbers. From this point, the accused used the actual registration number to proceed further.

The police swung into action and began tracking the vehicle through FASTag secured details from various toll gates. They intimated their counterparts in Maharashtra upon getting information that the vehicle was proceeding towards Madhya Pradesh from Maharashtra.

When the police tried to stop them at the tollgate, the accused tried to flee by running the car over the police. However, the cops managed to nab them.