Pune: A Pimpri Chinchwad police crime branch team on Friday nabbed Nilesh Chavan, a business associate of Shashank Hagawane and co-accused in the Vaishnavi Hagawane dowry death case, from Maharajganj district in Uttar Pradesh close to the India-Nepal border.“Nilesh Chavan was trying to run away to Nepal, but police arrested him before he could cross over. The police did the right kind of intelligence gathering and laid a correct trap to nab him. No guilty person will be spared in this matter. A very stringent punishment will be given in such cases,” CM Devendra Fadnavis told reporters in the city later in the evening.A police officer said Chavan had crossed the border in the last few days with the help of his local contacts to stay in a lodge at Bhairahawa in Nepal. He was also using a SIM card from Nepal, the officer said.Senior crime branch inspector Arvind Pawar and his team took Chavan into custody from Sonnauli village in Maharajganj. “Chavan will be brought back to Pimpri Chinchwad late in the night. He will be produced before court on Saturday,” deputy commissioner of police (Crime) Sandip Doiphode said.Vaishnavi’s parents had to struggle to secure her nine-month-old son’s custody on May 22, after a series of dramatic events that included allegations of a threat to her family members at gunpoint by Chavan. Vaishnavi’s maternal family, the Kaspates, learnt that her son was in custody of her arrested husband’s friend, Chavan, and that they had gone to the latter’s house in Karvenagar to seek his custody.The family alleged that Chavan threatened them at gunpoint and forced them to leave the place. A case was registered against Chavan with the Warje Malwadi police. The Bavdhan police also included Chavan’s name in the dowry case, and added sections of the JJ Act against him. Chavan was on the run since then. Six teams of the Pimpri Chinchwad police were tracing Chavan. The police had issued a lookout circular against Chavan and a court issued a standing warrant against him.DCP Doiphode said after the cases were registered against him, Chavan had fled Pune to Raigad district, Mumbai, then to Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh) and Bhairahawa in Nepal. “We nabbed him when he came to Sonauli village in Maharajganj district of Uttar Pradesh,” he said.“The crime branch teams led by senior inspector Pawar and assistant police inspector Harish Mane were constantly tracing Chavan. Assistant police inspectors of the cyber police were helping them by tracking Chavan’s whereabouts,” Doiphode added.An officer from the Pimpri Chinchwad crime branch told TOI that after fleeing Pune, Chavan used to travel by road and constantly change vehicles. “He even travelled by buses. We were tracking him with the help of CCTV footage. We traced the drivers of these vehicles, who helped us with leads about Chavan,” the officer said.“By using his contacts in Nepal, Chavan had managed to get a SIM card there. This made it difficult for us to trace his cellphone and track him. Our cyber police team finally traced him to Maharajganj on Friday, leading to his arrest,” he said.
