The eight have been involved in various housebreaking offences. They are: Salim Pathan (20), Shahbaz Sheikh (20), Deepak Nikumb (24), Prakash Patel (23), Jitendra Gandhi (24), Shubash Masare (22) and Samir Kasarkar (25) all from Vadodara and one Prakash Chauhan from Borsad.

The Vadodara police, however, managed to nab four of them from around the city by late evening. The Detection of Crime Branch arrested Nikam from his house in Vadodara, Gandhi and Chauhan from the SSG Hospital and Patel from the Padmavati Shopping Complex.

Vadodara Commissioner of Police Rakesh Asthana said the DCB had arrested most of the inmates earlier also.

He said two of the inmates’ wives had slipped in the saw when they came to meet their husbands in the jail on Monday. “We believe the wives of Pathan and Sheikh, Rita and Farida provided the saw,” Asthana said. The police are now trying to trace the two women. “Their identity and whereabouts are a matter of investigation. Checkposts and combing operations had commenced soon after the escape was discovered,” said Halol Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) R S Patel.

Panchmahals Superintendent of Police (SP) J R Mothlia said a head constable and two constables on guard duty at the time of the escape have been suspended.

Incidentally, six notorious dacoits managed to break out of the Dahod sub-jail the previous week using similar tools. An alarm was raised and one dacoit was shot dead and the others rounded up during the breakout.

Recent escapes

March 26, 2008: Twelve dacoits from Madhya Pradesh escaped from a police mobile van after assaulting their escort on the Vadodara-Ahmedabad Express Highway. One was nabbed.

May 4: Four undertrials from the Nari gang managed to evade the police and escaped from the Jamnagar District Jail.

May 30: Naharia Bhil, a dacoit from the same Madhya Pradesh gang escaped while being brought back to the Godhra Sub-Jail after an appearance at the Jabhwa court in Madhya Pradesh.

June 3: Five members of a dacoit gang from Madhya Pradesh attempt to escape from the Dahod sub-jail after breaking iron grilles and locks with a crowbar. The attempt was foiled when an alarm was raised and Shubash Sangodia, the king pin was shot dead. The others were arrested.