At 11.15 pm on Thursday, Constable Shivaji Rane (43), a diabetes patient, was taking his daily post-dinner walk at Five Gardens when the incident happened. “I had just sat down for a breather when a man placed a dagger to my neck gruffly, and told me to hand over all my valuables and cell phone. My first response was to tell him that I was a policeman and warned him to back off,” said Rane, who stays at the Dadar East police quarters. 

“He tried to slash my hand but as his knife struck my phone, I tried to overpower him. Sensing danger, he fled and I chased him down the Lady Jehangir Road near the Parsi Colony,” said Rane, who injured his fingers in the scuffle.  He gave up the chase only after he saw the police van closing in on the 22-year-old robber, who was soon nabbed and taken to the Matunga police station. Though there weren’t too many people at the spot, some who were standing at a distance and heard Rane’s cries also started chasing the robber. Meanwhile, someone from the public had also alerted the police, after which the patrol van joined in the chase.

“Our patrol van was dispatched to the spot immediately after we received an alert from the control room that a robber is on the run. We nabbed the robber who identified himself as Raju Shekhar and claimed to be staying at a footpath in Parsi Colony. It seems like he was in judicial custody for a year for a crime that was registered at Wadala police station. But we are verifying whether he has any criminal record,” said senior police inspector S L Deshmukh of the Matunga police station.