Judoka foils robbery bid, but injured in bargain
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
JULY 28, 2004
PUNE: An attempted robbery, a martial arts display with the robbers at the receiving end, and a knife injury to ensure an escape… it was a day of high drama for 22-year-old Sadashiv Peth resident Swapnil Kalbhor on Tuesday!
Swapnil, an HSC (external) student, had locked his first-floor flat at Abhishek Apartments in the afternoon to go meet his friends at the nearby Chitrashala chowk. But when he returned at 6.15 pm, he found the door ajar and the lock broken. On seeing two robbers in the house, Swapnil used his judo skills to good effect to subdue them.
One of the robbers, who spoke in Marathi, pleaded with Swapnil to spare them as they had taken nothing. The other robber, who spoke in Hindi, said his mother was in hospital and he was forced to rob to pay her expenses.
Swapnil made them sit in a corner while he called the police. However, even as he was on the phone, one of the robbers attacked him with a knife on the left arm. Though Swapnil managed to wrest the knife out of the assailant’s hands, the other robber attacked him with another weapon on the little finger of the left hand and on the right thumb.
The duo then fled with Swapnil in pursuit. “I called for help, but no one came to my aid,” recalled Swapnil. His friend and cousin later took him to hospital.
Swapnil’s mother Surekha and father Dilip, who owns a wine shop on Bajirao road, were away during the entire drama. Speaking to TNN, Swapnil’s neighbour Kumar Gujarati said he saw one of the robbers come to the building with a white puppy. “When I questioned him, he said he was supposed to deliver the dog to one Dilip Singh. I told him no one by that name stayed here,” Gujarati said.
The robbers apparently returned with the dog, which remained in the flat after their escape. The dog is presently being kept at the Perugate police chowky. The Vishrambaug police are investigating.
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