A truck driver who vanished after a cement fraud case in 1999 is finally in police custody. The surveillance team of Rajula police station in Amreli district arrested listed accused Abdul Sattar Mohammed Habib Qureshi in Nagpur, Maharashtra, closing a chase that lasted nearly three decades.
The 1999 cement fraud case
On 8 December 1999, a case of fraud and breach of trust was registered at Rajula police station. At the time, a truck driver had loaded a truck with cement from the Kovaya company and, along with other accused, sold off 30 tonnes of cement, or 600 bags, worth Rs 58,500 at the time, and then abandoned the truck and fled. Three accused in the case were caught at the time, but the main accused, the truck driver Abdul Sattar Mohammed Habib Qureshi, stayed out of police reach and remained absconding for years.
A trail that went cold in Uttar Pradesh
With the accused still untraced after 27 years, police reopened the case files and started the investigation afresh. During this fresh round, officers found that the address and village name recorded in the 1999 complaint were unclear or had changed, which made the trail harder to follow. The village named in the records, Gambhi Gharora in Pratapganj taluka of Pratapgarh district in Uttar Pradesh, could not be traced with certainty, and no definite lead came from it.
Voter lists narrow 150 names to one suspect
To break the deadlock, police obtained the SIR voter lists of all the talukas of Pratapgarh district in Uttar Pradesh and began checking them. Around 150 people with the same name surfaced in those lists, and the list of suspects was then narrowed down using the father's name and age. Police also took the help of the Election Department's new SIR list and technical analysis to carry the search forward.
A Bullet photo on WhatsApp gives him away
During the investigation, police found a mobile number connected to the accused's family. When the WhatsApp profile linked to that number was checked, a photo of a Bullet motorcycle came up. Police obtained the details of that Bullet's registration number, UP72BN0614, and confirmed that the motorcycle was registered in the name of the absconding accused himself. That single detail connected the family number, the motorcycle and the wanted man.
Arrest in Nagpur after years on the run
After the Bullet number and the social media link were in hand, police began tracking the accused's location. He kept changing states and places, but sustained technical and movement analysis by the police team finally led them to Nagpur in Maharashtra, where the listed accused, absconding for 27 years, was caught. Police have started further legal proceedings in the case.
