PONDA: In a major breakthrough, the Ponda police on Thursday arrested four persons –including the receiver of the stolen booty, allegedly involved in the last year’s Marcel-based temple burglary and recovered the part of the booty worth around Rs 1.5 lakh.

Police recovered the valuables from a gold smith in Darwad, who was identified as Sunil Mahableshwar Raikar. The names of the other three arrested persons were given as Suresh Bandari, Prakash Gosavi, both staying in Ponda, and Ramu Bhadra, all natives of Darwad.
This temple of Shree Gajanlaxmi was burgled in December 2009, wherein silver and gold religious articles worth around Rs 2.47 lakh including cash of Rs 10,000 was stolen.
Ponda PI, Mr Manoj Mardolkar while narrating the sequence of events which led to their arrest, informed that the hawaldar, Mr Savlo Naik, gathered information that two persons (Suresh and Prakash) residing at Ponda were involved in similar thefts.
Accordingly, the local investigating bureau (LIB), comprising of Mr Rajesh Naik, Mr Satish Pilye, Mr Uday Borkar and Mr Salvo rounded them up and brought them to the Ponda police station where they confessed to the crime and also revealed two more names of their accomplices from Darwad.
This police team then went to Darwad in search of the other two accused and with the help of the Darwad town police, the third accused, Ramu was arrested. He then gave the identity of the jeweller to whom they had sold the stolen property. PI expressing confidence that more stolen articles will be recovered from them said that more skeletons are likely to tumble out of
the closet.
All four have been arrested under Sections 457, 380, 411, readwith 34 of Indian Penal Code (IPC). They were produced before the Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC), Ponda and six days police remand was taken, informed the PI, Mr Mardolkar, who is conducting  investigations under the guidance of deputy superintendent of police (DySP), Mr Serafin Dias.