Scriptwriter returns from lunch at Thane eatery to find his bag containing a laptop, three hard disks, credit and debit cards, important documents and Rs 50,000 in cash gone
Manasawi Jhunjhunwala on the set of Mahabharat Aur Barbareek (2013), which starred Hema Malini
A Kandivli scriptwriter lost four years of research in just 11 seconds when a thief broke into his car on Ghodbunder Road in Thane last week and made away with his bag containing a laptop, three hard disks, credit and debit cards, important documents and Rs 50,000 in cash.
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The thief did a reconnaissance of the spot on Ghodbunder Road in Thane.
Manasawi Jhunjhunwala (45), who has also worked as an assistant director in a few films, stopped at a restaurant on Ghodbunder Road on June 9, parked his car on the road and went in for lunch. He saw a security guard at the restaurant and assumed that he would keep an eye on his vehicle. "I thought my belongings would be safe inside the car since a guard was around," he said.
The thief pretended to be talking on the phone while keeping an eye on the target.
When he returned around 15 minutes later, he found the window of a rear seat broken. "I rushed to check on my bag and found it missing," he said. The bag contained a laptop and three hard disks with four years of research on eight topics and the scripts he had worked on in the last four months.
The thief grabbed the bag in 11 seconds flat.
A shaken Jhunjhunwala approached the watchman and the restaurant manager for help, who offered to check their CCTV camera footage.
The footage showed a man arriving at the spot on a blue and white scooter. "At first, he parked the bike close to the spot where all cars were parked, and then he pretended to talk on the phone for a few minutes as he moved around doing a reconnaissance of the spot. He was checking if any car had valuables inside," said Jhunjhunwala.
The thief broke into the car and fled with it in a jiffy.
While the man milled around for 11 minutes, he took only 11 seconds to break into the scriptwriter’s car and grab the bag. "He then ran towards his scooter with the bag in hand, and fled," said Jhunjhunwala.
The thief did a reconnaissance of the spot on Ghodbunder Road in Thane while appearing to talk on the phone, locked his eye on the target, grabbed the bag in 11 seconds and sped off on his scooter
The Waliv police have registered an FIR under section 379 (theft) of the IPC. "We have launched a hunt for the thief based on the CCTV camera footage," said a police officer.
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