20-hour mega police operation

Lokmat News Network

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar

The police operation of raiding an international call centre in Chikalthana MIDC area lasted for nearly 20 hours. Acting upon the confidential information the police team conducted a raid at 1.20 am on the night of Monday and Tuesday. The operation, which began at 1.20 am, continued until 9 pm on Tuesday.

During the initial inspection, the cops discovered that the call centre had international links. Incharge commissioner of police Sudhir Hiremath personally visited the scene and gave instructions to the officers on how to handle the presentation of the accused in court later that night.

The police action was participated by DCP (Zone-II) Prashant Swami, DCP (Zone-I) Pankaj Atulkar, DCP (Crime) Ratnakar Navale, assistant commissioner of police Manoj Pagare, cyber cell’s PI Shivcharan Pandhare, senior PI Atul Yerme, PI Ashok Bhandare, and PI Swati Kedar, along with several APIs, PSIs, and hundreds of police personnel, remained stationed at the site throughout the day.

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Monitoring by DGP’s office

The operation carried out by police was considered of international significance, as the victims were US citizens. Therefore, Maharashtra Police treated the case with utmost seriousness.

Acting upon the orders of the director general of police (DGP) Rashmi Shukla, additional DGP Nikhil Gupta personally monitored the entire operation. Since Gupta had earlier served as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar CP, he was in contact with the officers conducting the raid to receive real-time updates, said the sources.

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Challenge of medical examination for 117 accused

A total of 117 persons working at the fake call centre were arrested, a very large number for a single operation. Most of the accused did not speak Marathi or Hindi, which made communication difficult for the police officers. Starting around 4 pm, police vans began transporting the accused in batches of 20 at a time to District Civil Hospital and Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) for mandatory medical examinations.

Since each examination took significant time, the entire process continued until 8 pm, taking up nearly four hours. The police had to struggle logistically to move, escort, and manage all 117 accused.