Two men accused of car-jacking and theft — Stephen Fernandes and Vijayan Joseph — were acquitted by a sessions court after the defence successfully proved that the police had detained them illegally.

Last year, on April 2, Jalashankar Shukla complained that he was carjacked by two persons at Santa Cruz. He said the carjackers had a revolver and asked him to drive to Vikhroli where he was dropped off and the car stolen.

The prosecution said the police had arrested Fernandes and Joseph on April 15 in connection with the case. But when the trial began, doubts about the case surfaced after Shukla deposed that the police had showed him two photographs of the accused on April 6, after which they were arrested.

Incident occurred a stone's throw from police post

In a shocking incident, seven shops in New Panvel were broke open on Tuesday late night. The thieves looted the shops Shiv Shakti Super Market, Urvashi Clothing, Om Surgical and Medical, SK Stationary, Reshma Medical and Kerala Chips located at Shiva Complex in sector 19, of cash and valuables worth Rs 4000, police said.

The surprising fact of the theft is that the complex wherein the theft happened was located just beside the police post. There was only one official who was on duty at the police outpost when the incident occurred due to which he could not go for patrolling in the area.

Three chain snatching incidents were reported from the city on Tuesday. According to police, Prameela Rohidas Patil (42), a resident of Gothavali village was walking on the road at sector 1, Nerul when two men on their bike snatched away her mangalsutra worth Rs 80,000.

Peace around Golden Nest area on Mira-Bhayandar Road was shattered on Wednesday, after six unidentified people exploded crude bombs and looted a jewellery shop, Sanjoli Gold. A person was shot at and grievously injured, while another was hurt in a blast.

Mira Road police said the incident happened at about 8.15 pm, when six miscreants burst three bombs, barged into the shop. Anil Jain, the shop-owner, had gone out on some job and had asked his brother, Abhay Jain to look after the shop for some time. Deepak Jain, 12, Anil’s son, was also present in the shop at the time of the incident.

The Thane police investigators were taken aback when they found that one of the accused arrested in connection with telecom fraud was the younger brother of a serving inspector general of police, Punjab.

In May 2005, the Thane police received a complaint from the legal cell of the Reliance Telecommunications alleging gross misuse of company’s phones for re-routing international calls, causing a huge loss to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

Following systematic investigations, the Thane cops zeroed in on Rakesh Sharma of Chandigarh along with his associate Gurdip Singh. Sharma was arrested on May 10, 2005 after his anticipatory bail was rejected by a lower court.