Police nabs absconding criminal from Thane

A murder convict who jumped parole in 2006 while undergoing life imprisonment in Pune's Yerawada Jail was Monday nabbed by Thane police, an official said. Police said the convict had changed his name and was working as an agent near the Panvel tehsildar's office and had even been arrested on January 10 this year by Anti-Corruption Bureau for allegedly accepting a bribe.

Senior Inspector Nitin Thackeray of Thane Police's Crime Branch Unit 1 said Kishore Raghunath Gaikwad (45) was sentenced to life imprisonment by an Alibaug court in 2003 for murdering Panvel-resident Mukund Mhatre in December 1997. He jumped bail in 2006 and started living under a fake identity as Kishore Ramchandra Mhatre and passed himself off to people as a resident of Usarli in Panvel, police said.

"Gaikwad, as a runaway convict, took up work as an agent outside the Panvel tehsil office under the new identity and was arrested on January 10 this year by the ACB for demanding a bribe of Rs 10,000 from a man who had some work there. He got out on bail the next day in this case," an official said.

Acting on a tip-off, a team led by Thackeray nabbed Gaikwad from the Vitava check post area on Monday, the official said. "He insisted he was Kishore Ramchandra Mhatre and not Kishore Gaikwad. After sustained interrogation by police, he accepted he was Kishore Gaikwad, a murder convict who had jumped parole," the official said. He was handed over to Kalamboli police for further action as a case had been registered there against him in 2013 for jumping parole, the official added.

(With inputs from agencies.)