Surat: Prevention of Crime Branch (PCB) of Surat City police arrested a 62-year-old murder accused who had been absconding for 26 years in connection with a case registered at Pandesara police station in 2000.The accused, Umesh Gopal Mankar, was traced to Maharashtra following an investigation involving technical surveillance and human intelligence.According to police inspector R S Suvera, the case was registered under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) after Mankar attacked his co-worker, Dattu Patil, with a wooden stick following a dispute in the Pandesara area. Patil later succumbed to his injuries, prompting police to register a murder case.Mankar had fled after the incident and remained at large for more than two decades, frequently changing locations to evade arrest.“The accused kept changing his place of residence over the past 26 years and avoided using a mobile phone to prevent police from tracking him. He had not married and had no immediate family of his own. During the investigation, we learnt that his two sisters were married,” Suvera said.Police maintained human and technical surveillance on Mankar’s sisters and their children for the past three years. The leads gathered during the surveillance eventually helped investigators trace him to a village in Nashik district in Maharashtra, where he was working and living at a brick kiln.The arrest is part of the PCB’s ongoing efforts to track down long-absconding offenders. According to police, they have arrested 58 accused over the past three years who had been wanted in cases for more than 10 years.
