Residence of Dharmik family where the robbers had sneaked inside posing as delivery boys
Nagpur: A day after 28-year-old man, Sumedh Gajbhiye, was assaulted by a mob on allegations of chain snatching and later died in police custody, the State Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has taken over the probe. The CID probe will therefore focus on two crucial questions — what happened to Sumedh before police reached the spot and whether anything occurred during or after his brief stay at the police station that led to his death. Additional director general of police, State CID, Sunil Ramanand, confirmed CID has taken over the case.
Sources said Sumedh may have mentioned a wrong name before his death to protect his aide. He said there’s already a standard operating procedure for custodial death cases and the agency would follow it. Police said Gajbhiye and his accomplice entered the house of an elderly woman, Usha Dharmik, posing as food-delivery workers. Police said someone alerted the emergency response system, following which officers reached the spot and took Sumedh into custody.
Twenty-four hours on, the mystery surrounding Sumedh’s accomplice, Deepak Patil , continued with cops failing to track him down. Neither his whereabouts nor crime records could be traced in the database. The incident began with an alleged daylight robbery at Modern Mill Society in Beltarodi police limits. Gajbhiye allegedly threatened the woman at knife-point and snatched her gold chain and fled. The police version is the assault, if any, occurred before officers took him into custody.
The crime and mob backlash took place at Pruthviraj Nagar, 500m off Beltarodi police station on Tuesday.
A separate accidental-death report along with a robbery FIR has been registered at Beltarodi police station. The case will be transferred to the crime branch, which will hand over the investigation records to CID. The gold chain allegedly snatched from the woman has not yet been recovered.