According to police, the constable, Rajendra Bhagwan Devre, was posted as a police telephone operator at Mane's residence, Bunglow No C-4, located at Madame Cama Road, Nariman Point. On July 16, 1998, Devre was on night duty, when Mane and his wife Neha suddenly rushed their two-and-a-half-year-old son Pradyuman to Bombay Hospital after blood began oozing out of his ear.

After a while, Devre called Mane on his mobile phone and inquired if he would be returning home immediately. Mane said he wouldn't. Seizing the opportunity, police said, Devre stole the money from a drawer in the bedroom's showcase.

The robbery came to light on September 17, 1998, when Mane's driver Suresh Jadhav asked Neha to give him Rs 600 to fill petrol in the car. As Neha went to the bedroom andopened the drawer in which a sum of Rs 41,000 had been kept, she found that some of the notes were missing. When she counted the money, she found only Rs 23,000. The servants, bodyguards, police operator and others employed in the Mane household were then questioned.

On September 24, Devre confessed he had stolen the money. He told police he had taken Rs 18,000 from the drawer, out of which he had spent Rs 6,000 towards medicines which were to be given to his mother, who was ill. The remaining Rs 12,000, Devre said, had not been spent, and was later recovered from him, police said.

Devre was produced before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of the 37th Esplanade court, N B Pokharkar, on Friday and has been remanded to police custody till October 9, 1998.