In a significant breakthrough, the police arrested a man from an Odisha village on Saturday, nearly 29 years after his involvement in an armed robbery at a textile factory in Surat’s Sachin area. The accused, Suresh Sadhu, also known as Sadhva Paridha, hails from Dashrathipur in Banpur taluka, Khordha, Odisha.
According to police, five individuals were allegedly involved in the 1996 robbery, with four of them arrested over the years. Suresh Sadhu, however, had been absconding, remaining on the run for almost three decades.
The incident occurred in 1996 when a gang of armed robbers reportedly stormed the Nand textile factory in the Sachin GIDC area, robbing Rs 50,000. The robbers, armed with firearms and knives, beat and threatened the factory owner, Hasmukh Dobariya, during the heist. Following the crime, a complaint was filed by the factory owner, leading to the registration of an FIR at the Sachin police station.
While four members of the gang had been apprehended in the years that followed, Suresh Sadhu managed to evade capture. The Sachin police, as part of their ongoing efforts to track down criminals from unresolved cases, focused on locating Sadhu. Through human intelligence, they learned that Sadhu had been hiding in a village in Odisha.
A five-member police team from Surat traveled to the village, working undercover for five days. They took on odd jobs to blend in and gather information. Their persistence paid off when they finally identified Sadhu, who was then picked up from his village in Odisha on Thursday.
After securing a transit remand from the local session court, the police brought Sadhu back to Surat on Saturday afternoon. According to Surat’s Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone 6, Rajesh Parmar, Suresh Sadhu had stayed in Delhi for some time before returning to his native village in Odisha. At the time of the robbery, Sadhu was only 22 years old. He later settled in his village, got married, and had two children, unaware to his family of his past criminal activities.
