Eavesdropper at bar helps arrest a man wanted for 23 yrs

Mumbai: Eavesdropping on someone else's conversation at a bar may be bad manners, but not when it can lead to solving a decades-old crime. Cops cracked a cheating case that transpired in 1989 with the help of an informer, who listened in on a conversation at a bar in Goregaon.

Acting on the information supplied, sleuths from the Crime Branch investigated the matter and arrested a 51-year-old man, Bharat Pandit, an Indian national who also had Canadian citizenship, from the international airport on Monday. "We were alerted by our informer that two men were talking about details of a forgery case in a bar. We then asked the informer to keep a watch on the man while we verified the case. During enquiry we realised that there was probability that the suspect would look different after 20 years.  We wanted to be sure we had the right man before we laid hands on him," said a Crime Branch officer.

Pandit was then handed over to the Nashik Road Police Station for further investigations. According to Mumbai cops, Nashik police did not know that Pandit had fled the country and assumed that he was still residing in India. According to them, had they known he was abroad, they would have issued a red corner notice against him.

Long arm of the law
"A case was registered against Pandit and his acquaintances on September 11, 1989 at the Nashik Road Police Station under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code. While his associates were nabbed, Pandit had escaped," said Deepak Phatangare, senior police inspector of Crime Branch unit VIII. Pandit, then 23, and four of his acquaintances sold a piece of land in Nashik that belonged to a lady with the help of forged papers.

However, after his
associates were arrested, Pandit fled to America with his wife and daughter fearing an imminent arrest.

"In 1989, he stayed at Atlanta in Georgia. He worked there for a while in various hotels under a work permit, which he got through his wife's name. He then purchased a hotel in Atlanta in 1996, but was deported to India in 1997 when his visa was found to have expired," said Phatangare.

After spending a year in India, he went to Canada in 1998 with his family on a visit visa. "After a few years, he got a Canadian passport and has been living there ever since. As he had real estate business interests in Goregaon and Thane, he would frequent the city to meet clients regarding property sales," said Sanjeev Gawde, assistant police inspector from the Crime Branch.