Shirur doctor offered lift in a cab, robbed

PUNE: Accepting a lift from strangers in the middle of the night may be the easiest way to reach one's destination, but not necessarily the safest. A 33-year-old doctor from Shirur learned this truth the hard way.
Santosh Valsange, who was on his way to Aurangabad to meet his wife, reached the Shivajinagar bus stand from Shirur around 2am on Saturday.While he was waiting for a bus, a cab driver approached him.
"He asked Valsange as to where was he headed. When told that he was waiting for a bus to Aurangabad, the cab driver promptly offered Valsange a lift in his vehicle which the latter accepted without a second thought," Sagar Kale, sub-inspector of the Shivajinagar police station told TOI.
Meanwhile, the driver approached one more person near the bus stand and offered him a lift too. With both the passengers sitting comfortably inside the cab, the driver took the wheels and drove towards the Sancheti hospital.
Once the cab reached near the hospital, the driver and the other passenger asked Valsange to hand over his valuables to them. "When Valsange tried to resist them, the duo threatened to kill him. They also snatched his gold chain and forcibly removed three gold rings from his fingers," Kale said, adding that even as the car was moving they managed to lay their hands on the doctor's wallet and removed Rs 6,100 cash from it.
"The suspects drove for some distance before dumping Valsange along Pune-Ahmednagar Road. The entire incident occurred within a matter of 20 minutes," the officer said. "In all, Valsange lost gold ornaments and cash, collectively worth Rs 1.42 lakh, to the robbers," he added.
Valsange reached the Vishranwadi police station soon after the incident and registered a complaint against the suspects. The case was later tranaferred to the Shivajinagar police station.
"The suspects have been booked under section 392 (robbery) of the Indian Penal Code. We have launched a search to trace the suspects. Also, we have started collecting CCTV camera footage in the area," Kale said.
This was the second such incident in the city over the last 10 days. On June 16, four unidentified men forced an Army captain to sit in their SUV outside a luxury hotel on Senapati Bapat Road under the pretext of offering him a lift. They robbed him of his cellphone worth Rs 10,000. hey also forced him to reveal the PIN of his debit card but failed to withdraw money as the card had developed a crack.
Against the backdrop of such cases, police have appealed to the people to avoid accepting lift from strangers.
"In such a scenario, it is always better to wait for a public transport," police officials said.