Five held for stealing farm motor pumps in Sawangi
Police arrested five men and recovered stolen pumps, bikes and copper wire worth about Rs 2.04 lakh after a series of farm thefts near Sawangi.
Cases of motor pumps being stolen from wells in farmers' fields had been rising for the past few days in the area under Sawangi Meghe police station. Complainant Rajendra Govindrao Daygavhane, a resident of Padegaon, told police that between 6 pm on September 16, 2026 and 7 am on September 17, 2026, unidentified thieves stole a Silver company 5 HP motor and cable from his field. During the same period, two motors went missing from neighbouring fields as well, a Kirloskar company 3 HP motor and cable from the field of Dilip Shamrao Masram, also of Padegaon, and a Turgo company 3 HP motor and cable from the field of Sunil Purushottam Revatkar. Based on the complainant's oral report, police registered a case as crime number 724/26 under section 303(2) of the BNS.
Even before this, around four motor pumps had been stolen in the area over roughly a month. One motor was stolen from the well in the field of Chandrakant Bhaiyyaji Bharti, a resident of Devli, on Selsura Road; one motor from the fields of Moreshwar Dnyaneshwar Vadatkar and Prajwal Vasudev Dafre on Vadad Road; and one motor from the field of Swapnil Khushalrao Jhade, a resident of Vanjari Chowk in Wardha, in the Nagthana area. Given the growing seriousness of these incidents, Police Inspector Vinod Giri, in charge of Sawangi police station, put the crime detection team on tracing the stolen goods and the unidentified accused. During the investigation, police received a tip-off that a juvenile in conflict with law was involved in the theft. Police traced the boy, took him into confidence and questioned him, and he told them he had stolen the motor pumps from the fields with the help of his friends.
Police then arrested five accused: 22 year old Om Digambar Pathade of Salod Hirapur, Wardha district; 19 year old Samayak Deepchand Bharne of Devli; 19 year old Kunal alias Krishna Rajendra Raut of Agargaon in Devli taluka; 28 year old Jitendra Garibravji Kamble, also of Agargaon in Devli taluka; and 19 year old Ashish Ananta Aatram of Dhotra Railway in Wardha taluka. Questioned after police obtained a PCR from the court, the accused said they had sold the stolen motors to Govind Gadai, a scrap dealer residing in Rajiv Nagar, Sawangi. They also admitted that on the night of September 13 into September 14, 2026, they had stolen the cable of a cement road making machine from Sawangi Medical Chowk to Sawangi Dawakhana Road, a case registered at the police station as crime number 722/26 under section 303(2) of the BNS. The accused had burnt the stolen cable to extract the copper from it and hidden it at a spot, which they themselves showed to police. According to the memorandum panchnama, five kilograms of copper wire worth about seven thousand five hundred rupees was seized from the accused on this count.
Police also seized from the scrap dealer a Silver company 5 HP motor worth nine thousand rupees, a Kirloskar company 3 HP motor worth four thousand rupees and a Turgo company 3 HP motor worth seven thousand rupees, besides the four motors stolen from the Vadad, Selsura and Nagthana areas, which the scrap dealer had dismantled into separate parts, worth about ten thousand rupees. Also seized were a Hero Honda Splendor motorcycle bearing number MH 31 BY 3700 worth fifty thousand rupees, a Honda Shine motorcycle bearing number MH 32 AW 3639 worth eighty thousand rupees, an Oppo mobile phone worth ten thousand rupees, a Poco Android mobile phone worth ten thousand rupees, a keypad mobile phone worth fifteen hundred rupees, and copper wire extracted by burning cable worth fifteen thousand rupees, used by the accused in the thefts. In all, police seized goods worth about two lakh four thousand rupees and solved two cases registered at Sawangi Meghe police station.
The action was carried out under the guidance of Superintendent of Police Saurabhkumar Agrawal, Additional Superintendent of Police Sadashiv Waghmare and Sub-Divisional Police Officer Sunil Mahadik, by a team from Sawangi police station comprising station in-charge Police Inspector Vinod Giri, Head Constable Sanjay Panchbhai, Virendra Kamble, Anil Vaidya, Nikhil Phutane, Harshavardhan Moon and Amol Jadhav. Head Constable Sanjay Panchbhai is investigating the case further.
