Team Herald
MARGAO: It was a missed call that led the Margao Town Police to lay their hands on the gold thief on Monday.
A missed call of the accused 24-year-old Maulali Zamadar registered on the jewellery shop manager’s mobile phone finally helped the cops nab the thief, as he was traced and arrested with the gold worth Rs 4,28,900 stolen from the jewellery shop on April 4 evening.
Apparently, Maulali had come with a criminal intention of stealing gold from the store which he planned to use for his cousin’s marriage back home. He has confessed to having stolen a necklace to give to his cousin who is the bride to be and sell the other gold ornaments and use the money to meet the wedding expenditure.
Maulali had visited the shop on April 3 and carried with him two packets that looked like cash amounting to around Rs 1 lakh each. The packets were made by cutting newspaper in the size of Rs 500 currency note.
He told the store owner he did not have sufficient money and that someone would come with it but Snehal Devkar, who was managing the store, asked Maulali to come the next day. He returned to the store the next day and after distracting the manager to get some more gold ornaments, he walked away with 3 rings, a bracelet and two necklaces and got on to a truck proceeding to Karwar. From Karwar he went to Sirsi which is his native place.
What helped the police was the fact that on April 3 he took the store manager’s phone number and while saving it on his mobile also called him due to which a missed call was recorded on the manager’s mobile, which the police used to trace the thief.
The thief had given the necklace that he stole to gift his cousin to a friend of his for safekeeping, which the police recovered while the other ornaments were found in Maulali’s possession.
Margao Town Police Inspector Tushar Lotliker was all praise to the team headed by PSI Sagar Dhatkar that traced and arrested Maulali.
