02-07-2025
Jewelry shop daylight heist: Three including mastermind arrested, minor detained
Pune city police have cracked the daylight armed robbery at a jewelry shop in Vadgaon Budruk area of Pune. The woman owner of the shop was seriously injured. Police have detained a 16-year-old minor and arrested three more suspects in their early 20s, including the mastermind of the heist.
The incident had taken place around 1.30 pm on Tuesday at Shri Gajanan Jewellers located in Vadgaon Budruk area.
Investigation revealed that two persons wielding a firearm and a sharp weapon barged into the shop. At the time of the robbery, the owner, identified as Mangal Ghadge, was alone in the shop. The robbers threatened her and started robbing the store at gunpoint and knifepoint.
As the Ghadge resisted, one of them attacked her with a metal weapon on her head and hand. The two fled with gold weighing over 50 grams on the bike with the third suspect who was waiting outside on the bike. Mangal Ghadge along with her husband Shankar Ghadge owns the shop.
A parallel investigation was launched by the teams from the Crime Branch and the Sinhagad Road police station. Initial clues were obtained by the investigator when they identified the suspects based on CCTV footage. The bike used in the crime was recovered from the detained minor.
Based on the information obtained from the minor suspect and the clues obtained from other sources, the police arrested the three other suspects identified as Vardan Kharatmal (20), Amal Babhale (20) and Omkar Shinde (22).
'The minor suspect, Kharatmal and Babhale were the three suspects who had come on the bike. Shinde on the other hand was the one who masterminded the heist and asked the trio to execute it.'
In the subsequent probe, the police recovered from the accused the gold ornaments worth Rs 4.5 lakh which included three gold chains and a gold necklace weighing around 50 grams, which were robbed from the shop.
