The Mumbai police’s recruitment drive had an unexpected candidate—a 25-year-old petty thief from Ahmednagar who was caught with four phones and Rs 4,200 in cash on April 8. Police suspect he had been sneaking into the Kalina MU ground and stealing phones and cash from other candidates’ bags since April 3, when he came for his test. The constable deployed in the luggage room caught Akshay Pramod Borde, a resident of Ahmednagar, with a pocket full of phones and cash, and handed him over to the BKC police.

According to cops, Borde had come to the Kalina campus of the Mumbai University on April 3 and was issued a hall ticket for his physical test. However, taking advantage of the crowd of thousands of candidates arriving to the ground daily, he would sneak in using the same hall ticket. Police suspect he had been stealing aspirants’ phones and cash daily since.

Akshay Pramod Borde, the accused, had arrived for his test last week, at MU Kalina campus in Santacruz. File Pic/Shadab Khan

A police officer said, “On April 8, when the crowd increased around 9 am, Borde posed as a candidate and entered the ground using the hall ticket. He kept his bag in the luggage room. Later, he randomly picked up a bag and went to the toilet used by candidates. He removed the SIM card of the mobile phone, threw it near the toilet, kept the phone in his pocket and put the bag back in the room. He made multiple rounds.”

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Police constable Ranjit Balaso Jambhale, who is posted at the Nirmal Nagar police station in Bandra East, was deployed at the luggage room of the recruitment centre. “Jambhale noticed Borde’s pocket was overloaded, so he stopped him at the entry of the luggage room. He enquired Borde and tried to check his pocket when he threw a mobile phone on the ground. Jambhale then found three more mobile phones and Rs 4,200 in cash from his pocket,” the officer said, adding that they also found SIM cards that he had thrown outside the toilet.

Jambhale then informed the BKC police who registered an FIR against Borde and arrested him. They seized the stolen mobile phones and cash. Police are now checking the CCTV cameras for footage of his entries on previous days, to check how many times he snuck in the camp and fled with stolen phones and cash.

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