PSU bank manager, 3 others held for carjacking

A relationship manager of a nationalised bank has severed his ties with the law of the land. He was one of the four persons arrested by the crime branch on Monday for their alleged involvement in at least three carjacking cases in the city in the past two months.

Shivpal Singh, 29, the kingpin, Rajesh Verma, 25, Mahendra Koli, 35, and Chandraprakash Sharma, 28, who works for a State Bank of India branch, will be handed over to the Oshiwara police on Tuesday.

On June 3, the gang members had escaped with the Skoda car of Dhiren Chheda. One of them got into the car from behind near a signal at the Lotus petrol pump in Oshiwara and brandished his revolver at Chheda. Another member got into the front seat.

They told Chheda that they had killed members of Dawood Ibrahim’s gang members and that they were waiting for Chhota Rajan to send a vehicle for their escape. They told Chheda that they would take shelter in his car till their vehicle arrived, the crime branch officials said.

The accused then took the vehicle to Bandra Reclamation around 8.30pm, where they tied Chheda’s hands and shifted him to the rear seat. They then drove via Mahim to Grant Road, abandoned the vehicle with Chheda in it at a bridge there. Before fleeing, they robbed cash, mobile phone, ATM, debit and credit cards and valuables worth Rs90,000 from Chheda, crime branch officials said.

“On Monday, the Bandra unit of the crime branch got information that the four would arrive near Infinity Mall in Andheri,” joint commissioner of police (crime) Rakesh Maria said. “A crime branch team arrested them from near the mall,” he said.

The police said Sharma may have helped the gang use the money and credit cards they had stolen without raising suspicion.

“Sharma was once helped by Verma; he joined the gang through Verma,” Maria said. “Singh, a native of Palam village in Delhi, had come to Mumbai in February in search of work, but ended up forming the gang,” he said.