Thane: A 28-year-old man, arrested with two others for stealing money from bank customers while pretending to help them, turned out to be an absconding murder convict from Gujarat, Palghar police in Maharashtra said.
Mitesh @ Rahul @ Khatiyawadi Waman Rathod, originally from Bhavnagar, was sentenced to life imprisonment for a murder committed in 2009, said Palghar Additional Superintendent of Police Raj Tilak Roshan.
Palghar police were probing several cases of cheating where some unidentified persons offered to help bank customers in writing down serial numbers of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 notes before depositing them, and stole some of the notes in the process.
Rathod, Chandrakant Dasawate (28) and Vishnudutt @ Sanjay Shukla (27) were arrested in these cases a couple of days ago.
During interrogation, police found that Rathod had been convicted in a case of murder registered in Vadodara in 2009, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
He came out of the Surat Central Prison on parole in 2014, and fled to Maharashtra instead of returning to the prison after the parole period ended, police said.
Further probe is on.
PTI