MUMBAI: Newly minted mechanical engineer Nikhil Naikade was understandably shattered when his specially equipped laptop worth Rs 3.7 lakh was stolen from a local train. Naikade, who had recently got a job offer from a software product company, feared he would be shown the door for losing an office-owned asset. However, in a stroke of luck, a week later he learnt from the Antop Hill police his laptop had been found.
"I rarely travel by the railway as my bag is bulky. But on July 14, I took a train home as it was raining heavily and the roads were jammed," said the 22-year-old from Mulund. He placed the bag with his computer, which had vital data and was programmed to run software that aid in designing products, on the overhead rack in a second class coach.
A shabbily dressed man boarded at Kurla and sat next to him. He also dropped a bag on Naikade while trying to place it on the overhead rack. "I had seen the man move my bag to the corner of the rack, closer to the exit. At Ghatkopar, just as the train was about to move, he snatched my bag and jumped off," Naikade told TOI. He realised the theft later. The bag also had expensive headphones, some cash, earphones and a tiffin box.
He got off at Mulund and went to the railway cops. "My legs were shaking and I cried for two days straight," said Naikade. In a relief, his seniors at work proved understanding.
It seemed the wheel had turned, and things were only going to get better for Naikade. On July 20, the Antop Hill police were patrolling a desolate stretch in sector 7. "Just a day earlier, we had nabbed an absconding accused from this stretch and were extra vigilant," said the police. They found a laptop and charger dumped among some bushes.
There was a sticker which gave the cops a clue about the company it belonged to. After looking up online, they called the company's Pune office and were directed to the Mumbai office, which informed Naikade.
"It helped that senior inspector Nasir Kulkarni is an instrumentation engineer. He understood the value of the laptop and the data in it," said Naikade, adding that the police are in the middle of processing the release of his laptop.
