Police have arrested an absconding accused involved in a Rs 4,000 theft case registered nearly 20 years ago, a period during which he kept changing his location and was recently found working as a sugarcane cutter in Latur district of Maharashtra, officials said on Tuesday.
The accused, Babu Laxman Sankole (41), a resident of Budhoda village under Ausa tehsil of Latur district, was arrested on Monday and produced before a local court, which remanded him to judicial custody till January 27, they said.
The accused was wanted in a theft case registered at the Shivajinagar Police Station in Latur and had been evading arrest for the past nearly two decades. As the accused kept changing his place of residence, police were unable to trace him, and the case was eventually kept in a dormant file.
However, a special squad of the Latur police reopened the case and pursued it meticulously.
On Monday, the special squad received information that Sankole was currently residing on Yakatpur Road in Ausa tehsil and working as a sugarcane cutter in the Kamalpur-Ujani area, said the officials.
After verifying the information, the police laid a trap and detained the accused and later placed him under arrest.
According to case details, one Arvind Vitthalrao Bhosale, a resident of Shahupuri Colony, Latur, had reported that on July 10, 2006, at around 10 pm, an unknown thief stole a car stereo worth approximately Rs 4,000 from his car parked outside his house.
Following the complaint, a case was registered at the Shivajinagar Police Station under IPC section 379 (punishment for theft).
The accused was initially arrested on July 14, 2006, and was later granted bail. He began remaining absent from court proceedings and later disappeared.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
