Unsolved murder case helps Matunga police solve 5 robbery cases from Matunga, Wadala

Matunga police, on Monday, arrested a 50-year-old diamond merchant in connection with multiple robberies involving senior citizens from the area.

The accused, Sunil Pujara, hails from Rajkot and has been living in the city for the last 6 months. During his time in the city, Pujara was staying in a Juhu-based 5-star hotel with a tariff of over Rs 12,000 per night.

On June 6, 78-year-old Manjula Vora was murdered at her Matunga residence by an unidentified man. While Matunga police were investigating the murder, they decided to broaden their search to include robberies from the nearby areas. The search for robberies involving senior citizens led them to four cases of robbery reported at Matunga and one at Wadala, where the thief had the same modus operandi.

According to an investigating officer, the thief would target buildings from the area which were predominantly owned by Gujaratis. He would then get friendly with the building’s watchmen and try to extract information about any possible senior citizens with their kids living abroad.

Then, he would approach the senior citizens, posing as a friend of their son, and ask them to help them with a puja. He would ask for items like gold and cash for the puja with a promise to return it soon after, but disappear with the items.

With the help of CCTV footage from a building where Pujara had conned a senior citizen, cops managed to get his picture and circulated it across neighbouring stations. On Monday, a beat marshall found him lurking in Matunga. He took him to Matunga police station, where he was arrested for cheating and theft.

During investigation, Pujara revealed that he was into diamond trading before cheating people and would often go to Goa casinos to gamble with the stolen money. Cops have have managed to recover cash and gold amounting to Rs 3.70 lakh from him.