Student steals friend's bike to rob fancy accessories

Unable to take no for an answer when a friend refused to lend him a high-end motorcycle for a day, a college student decided to steal the bike to teach his unwilling pal a lesson, and concocted a story at the police station.

Tit for tat: The accused Nitesh Chiplunkar, who has been remanded in police custody for stealing his friend's motorcycle, after he refused to lend it to him for a dayu00a0

The accused Nitesh Chiplunkar (19), a student of Maharshi Dayanand College of Arts, Science and Commerce, was arrested on Monday after sleuths of the Shivaji Park police found too many holes in his story.

According to the police the accused owns a Honda CBR motorcycle and early this month he befriended Santosh Kurtudkar, who runs a sweet shop in Dadar and also happens to own a similar bike. Nitesh had asked Santosh to lend him his bike for a day, but the latter refused.

Stung by the refusal, the accused invited Santosh to watch a movie at a theatre in Mahim on October 6. "Both were watching the film and Nitesh got up midway claiming that he wanted to use the washroom. Upon returning, he told Santosh that both their motorcycles had been stolen," said Deep Bane, sub-inspector of Shivaji Park police station.

Nitesh and Santosh lodged a complaint at Shivaji Park police station and an investigation was initiated. "Santosh never suspected Nitesh, but we suspected something was wrong from the onset," said Dhanajay Kulkarni, deputy commissioner of police, Zone V.

According to the investigators, they noticed that Nitesh knew every detail of Santosh's bike when they asked him to describe the vehicle.

Apart from the fact that he seemed to be quite fond of bikes and racing, other answers he gave the cops made them suspect he might have orchestrated the robbery.

"We asked him where he was after the incident he gave us locations and timings. When cross checked using his call records, things did not add up," said Bane.

The police took Nitesh in for questioning, during which he confessed that he had managed to get a duplicate key made for Santosh's CBR and arranged for a mechanic he knew to meet him at the theatre on October 6. He then handed over his keys along with the duplicate, telling the mechanic to take the bikes to a garage for repairs. The accused confessed that he first took Santosh's bike because he wanted to teach him a lesson for refusing to lend it to him, but then decided to scavenge the accessories and fit them on his own motorcycle.

The police are currently investigating whether the mechanic was hand in glove with the accused, or whether he was clueless about Nitesh's plan and was only used for its execution.

Nitesh was produced in court yesterday and has been remanded in police custody. The accused has been booked under Section 379 of the Indian Penal Code.u00a0