Nagpur: A hardened criminal, Ajay Borkar, arrested under the stringent Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act (MPDA), escaped from a moving police vehicle on Monday, just metres away from Nagpur Central Jail. The van slowed down near a traffic signal, when he wriggled out of police clutches and jumped off the vehicle, leaving a handful of cops rattled.
The police brass is investigating whether Borkar’s escape was spontaneous or engineered by cops, who have now begun scouring Jaripatka’s Indora Bhandar Mohalla and liquor dens to track him. It’s learnt this is probably the first time that a goon, arrested under MPDA, has managed to flee from police custody just before his entry into the jail.
Borkar, with nine offences against him, was booked under MPDA by Jaripatka police and paraded before the police commissioner for legal formalities. After receiving the jail warrant, cops were taking him to Nagpur Central Prison, when he managed to slip away under mysterious circumstances.
Borkar sprinted towards Rahate Colony square and then turned towards Dhantoli, said a source. The Jaripatka police team, which was accompanying Borkar, immediately alerted the police control room and other seniors. The message was aired across the city, but nothing was taken on record for legal reasons. Borkar had several cases of assault against him.
The sensational escape was initially hushed up as registering a fresh offence of fleeing police custody would mean reprocessing MPDA formalities from scratch. Dhantoli police, their Jaripatka counterparts, and the crime branch are furiously searching for the culprit and scanning CCTV footage for clues. Till going to the press, it wasn’t clear how Borkar managed to slip away from the police van and remained elusive.
