Man with ‘new identity’ arrested for ‘old crime’

In what may seem like a plot of a Hindi flick, the Andheri police arrested a man not only wanted in two murder cases but also for jumping parole.

Vijay Bhiwaji Palande, 37, accused of murdering a father and son in 1998, shifted to an apartment in Andheri (East) in 2004 and even managed to get himself a new identity - Kiran Kanubhai Rana.

 “Palande was in-charge of the restaurant Copper Chimney Juhu. However, he had a monetary dispute with Swaraj Ranjan Das, a 55-year-old retired Air India employee, and his son Anup Das. He then took the father and son separately to Polaspur near Mahabaleshwar and brutally stabbed them to death” said senior inspector Pradeep Suryavanshi, who was earlier attached to DN Nagar police station.

“We were able to recover their decomposed skeletons a year after they were murdered.”

Suryavanshi claimed that though Palande was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002, he was released on parole in August 2003.

“Palande somehow managed to acquire a new passport from Thane under the name of Kiran Kanubhai Rana on April 5, 2004. He then fled the country and travelled to Thailand, Singapore, London and China,” said Suryavanshi.

After his return to the city, one of Suryavanshi’s informers told him about Palande’s whereabouts. He said, “When my team and I went to the Andheri (East) address, the door was opened by Palande. When we questioned him he nonchalantly told us that he was Rana and not Palande. He went so far as to produce his passport (no 9004349) to prove this. Nonetheless we refused to believe him and arrested him.”

Palande had been listed as a parole offender at the Kolhapur correctional institute after he failed to return after being released from the prison in 2003.