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Guard held for stealing Baal Shivaji's crown gems from Rani Baug

Friday night saw the BMC-run Byculla zoo authorities and the police entangled in an absurd theft scenario, after it was reported that panache - plumage with some jewellery embedded in it - had been stolen from the crown of Baal Shivaji's statue at Rani Baug, or Jijamata Udyaan.

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Friday night saw the BMC-run Byculla zoo authorities and the police entangled in an absurd theft scenario, after it was reported that panache - plumage with some jewellery embedded in it - had been stolen from the crown of Baal Shivaji's statue at Rani Baug, or Jijamata Udyaan.

Upon learning of the theft, civic officials approached the police, who eventually recovered the crown plumage, and arrested a 54-year-old security guard, Maruti Kaate, for his suspected involvement.

Kaate, a resident of Ghodbunder Road in Thane, has been working as a security guard at the zoo for the past 29 years.

According to the police, on March 27, around 10.10 pm, divisional security officer Pradeep Raut of BMC zone II, was informed by his deputy that the plumage had gone missing. The deputy said zoo director Anil Anjankar had informed him of the theft.

Raut, 56, went to the spot at 22.40pm to inspect the Baal Shivaji statue. One of the women guards informed the officials that she had gone on a bathroom break around 9.30pm, and when she returned 15 minutes later, she found that the panache was missing.

An officer from Byculla police station said, "Zoo director Anjankar met Raut and told him that an unknown person called him up to say he had information about the theft and then disconnected the call. The cell phone from which the call was made was switched off after that. Anjankar told Raut to take necessary action, after which Raut lodged a police complaint."

The police set about procuring the details of the cell phone from which Anjankar had received the call, and it turned out that the number belonged to Kaate. He was called to the police station and, upon sustained questioning, he admitted to the crime.

"Kaate himself offered to lead the cops to the missing jewellery. He took us to a pond at Japanese Garden in Rani Baug and fished out the missing article from the pond," the police officer said, adding that some jewelley was missing from the panache. He continued, "The said act seemed to have been done with the intention of creating communal tension. We are baffled why he called up the authorities if he himself was the thief. Such instances have taken place before and we are probing if Kaate played any role in them."

Kaate was arrested on Saturday and booked under sections 379 (theft), 295 (A) (deliberately outraging religious sentiments), 153 (A) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to harmony) and 427 (causing mischief) of the Indian Penal Code.

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