Thane Jan 22 PTI A restaurant operator in Thane city has been booked for allegedly duping the owner of the establishment of Rs 6850 lakh by not paying rent or other operational charges police said on Saturday The accused has been identified as Pratik Kasare who lured the restaurant owner into entering an agreement with him in January 2020 by claiming he had completed his hotel management studies from a premier institute abroad and was managing several fine dine eateries the SHO of Kasarwadavali police station said Kasare defaulted on rent of Rs 2915 lakh staff wages of Rs 18 lakh liquor bills of Rs 17 lakh and grocery charges of Rs 4 lakh he added PTI COR BNM BNM BNM

Thane Jan 22 PTI Two directors of a Kolhapur-based firm have been booked for allegedly cheating a distributor in Bhiwandi in Thane district to the tune of Rs 19 lakh a police official said on Saturday The husband-wife duo had taken Rs12 lakh from a distributor to supply noodles and other eatables and gained his confidence by sending items worth Rs 1078 lakh Assistant Inspector Abhijit Patil of Kongaon police station They then asked the distributor for Rs 1215 lakh and also asked him to give Rs 626 lakh to another Goa-based distributor all on goodwill After the transactions were completed the accused vanished leaving the distributor poorer by over Rs 19 lakh he said Efforts are on to nab the two accused the official said PTI COR BNM BNM BNM

Thane Jan 22 PTI Two persons have been arrested and a minor detained in connection with a racket involved in generating fake SIM cards in Maharashtras Thane district police said on Saturday A huge stock of activated black SIM cards and fabricated identity cards were seized from the accused said Yogesh Chavan deputy commissioner of police Zone-II Bhiwandi Based on a tip-off a team from the Bhoiwada police station raided a locality in Nagaon of Bhiwandi and nabbed the accused selling SIM cards to customers on Thursday he said The police have arrested Mohammad Irfan Islam Ansari 23 and Saeed Sagar Abdul Gafar Shaikh 24 while a minor has also been detained in the case he said The police have recovered 111 fake SIM cards different Aadhaar cards having the photo of one and the same person a printer KYC machine three mobile phones and 250 SIM cards of various service providers the official said The seized goods were valued at Rs 223 lakh he said An offence under section 420 cheating and other relevant provisions of the IPC has been registered the official said adding that further probe is underway to trace people who have been sold the SIM cards PTI COR ARU ARU

Thane Jan 22 PTI The Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited MSEDCL has registered four offences of power theft of over Rs 22 lakh in Thane district an official said on Saturday As per a release issued by the state-run power company two offences each had been registered in Sahapur and Kalyan subdivisions based on complaints lodged by MSEDCL engineers who detected the thefts worth Rs 2286 lakh The offences had been detected in an industrial unit poultry farm and two domestic supplies it was stated In one of the cases a remote gadget was used to steal power and in other cases electricity meter was bypassed the official said Offences had been registered with the Murbad and MFC police stations it was stated PTI COR ARU ARU

Thane Jan 22 PTI An elderly couple was stabbed to death by unidentified persons in their house on a farm in Ganeshpuri town of Maharashtras Thane district police said on Saturday Jagannath Kalu Balu Patil 78 and his wife Satyabhama 70 were found brutally killed at their house in Pendharipada of Akloli on the outskirts of the town in the early hours of the day an official said The killings came to light when the couples maid arrived for work around 730 and when no one answered the door despite repeated knocking the door was broken down and the duo was found lying in a pool of blood he said According to the police the murders may have taken place in the intervening night of Friday and Saturday Some unidentified persons broke into the house and stabbed the duo several times and killed them the official said An offence under section 302 murder of the IPC has been registered with the Ganeshpuri police station and the bodies have been sent for post-mortem he said The police suspect that property dispute may be the motive behind the killings as no valuables were stolen from the house the official said As per preliminary reports the television in the house had been left on throughout the night and the couple may have been watching TV at the time of murder Patil was handicapped and had lost a leg to gangrene he said adding that gold ornaments on the deceased woman were intact while objects had been scattered in the entire house PTI COR ARU ARU