Mumbai:
Size does matter. This is what the two obese Bandra-based Chopra brothers used to their advantage to evade arrest in cheating cases registered against them.
The Bandra police have been wanting to arrest Ajay and Sanjay Singh, both in their late 40s, for more than a month.
The duo has been charged with selling the same flat at Bandra to different buyers and cheating them of lakhs of rupees.
A police source said that recently when officers of a central investigation agency, who are investigating another case against them, went to look for them at their flat in Bandra, one of the accused ran towards the lift and reached the top floor. He then reportedly bribed the lift man and told him to go to the ground floor and close the lift.
When agency officials reached there, they found the lift closed. Not to be bowed down by this, the officials climbed up the floors. "The accused had thought that the officials will not follow him as the lift was not functioning," said a source.
"On seeing them in front of him, the accused fell on the ground breathing hard and started complaining about chest pain," the source added.
The officials, terrified that they will be blamed if he died in their custody, left without taking him.
They said that when the police found about this incident they too became wary of arresting them. The accused fled to Kalyan after the incident. The duo has now applied for anticipatory bail in the court.
The police have now made arrangements for their arrest in a special way, if their anticipatory bail plea is rejected.
Sources said that the police have planned to bring the accused in an ambulance instead of a police van. The ambulance will have the emergency kit, in case the accused use their health as an excuse.
The accused will then be directly produced in the court instead of being brought to the police station.
The officials are also preparing the case in such a manner that the accused are kept in judicial custody instead of police custody for interrogation.
"We are in the process of attaching their property based on which they cheated the victims" said senior police inspector Prakash George of Bandra police station.
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