Early evening on Friday, 74-year-old Hasmukh Patel was seated in the courtyard of his villa in the Akota area in Vadodara when a “delivery agent” sporting an orange T-shirt of an e-commerce platform arrived at the gate with a parcel. As Patel reached the gate to collect the parcel, the “delivery agent” snatched the gold chain from his neck and ran away before Patel could even unlock the gate.
Even as Patel rushed to Akota police station to lodge a complaint and police began a probe, looking into the CCTV footage of the incident, the accused had already fled to Bharuch town, where he had unsuccessfully attempted a similar offence on Thursday evening, approaching a senior citizen at her home, dressed as a ‘delivery agent’. On Friday night, luck ran out for him as officers of the Bharuch C-Division police station nabbed him based on a tip-off.
Identified as Kishor alias Ajay Machhi (46), the accused is currently in the custody of the Bharuch C-Division police station, from where Vadodara city’s Akota police station will seek his arrest through a transfer order.
Police Inspector V A Dodiya of Bharuch C-Division police station said that while Machhi has been targeting senior citizens in a similar modus operandi of delivering parcels, he had been doing it donning the look of an e-commerce delivery agent of late.
“He dressed up as a delivery agent. On January 1, he made a similar attempt in Bharuch town but was unsuccessful and then, he went to Vadodara and committed the offence. He had returned to Bharuch on Friday night in a bid to escape arrest in Vadodara,” Dodiya said.
The police added that Machhi, a resident of Vadodara, is a hardened criminal and recently resorted to using rented two-wheelers to commit the offence to escape the consequences of vehicle confiscation.
Dodiya said, “The two-wheeler used for the offence has been rented for a month. He realised over the years that confiscation of the vehicles hampers his next move. So, now that the two-wheeler will be confiscated, it will not be his loss….”
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The Bharuch C-Division police station said that an initial probe has revealed that Machhi has close to 28 cases of theft and chain snatching registered against him at various police stations in the state, including six in Gandhinagar Sector-7 as well as Anand district, Mehsana, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Banaskantha, Sabarkantha, Kheda and Junagadh since 2005.
He has also been sent to Porbandar Jail under the Gujarat Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Act, 1985, a law allowing preventive detention of individuals involved in repeated criminal offences.
Police Inspector DV Baldaniya of Akota Police station in Vadodara city said that the process to seek Macchi’s arrest on transfer has been initiated. “We have lodged an offence based on the complaint of the senior citizen on Friday. The accused has been nabbed in Bharuch town and we have initiated the process to seek his custody on transfer order,” Baldaniya said.