A maintenance sticker on a motorbike helped the Worli police track down an accused who allegedly mowed down a pedestrian and escaped. The biker, a minor, had abandoned his bike at the accident scene. When the bike was traced to a slum area, the address was found to be fake.

The incident occurred on the night of April 8 near the Nirlon House in Worli. Police officials said that they got a report that around 9.30 pm a man who was crossing the road was hit by a bike and that the biker had fled. “We identified the victim as Sanjay Yadav, a sweeper at a bank located in the area. The victim, who was rushed to the hospital by bystanders, was declared dead before admission,” said a senior officer at Worli police station. The police then registered an offence and started investigation.

One of the vital pieces of evidence was the bike, which the accused in his panic had abandoned at the accident spot. “We seized the bike and traced it to a slum area in Antop Hill. But upon reaching there, we found the address to be a fake one and did not lead us to anybody,” added the officer. At a dead end, the police scanned the CCTV footage but could only get a rough sketch of the accused. The investigators then began a second thorough check of the bike.

“We knew that the bike was the only way to reach the accused. So we looked at it minutely and luckily noticed a sticker inside. It was of a garage where the bike had been given for some repair work. So we visited the garage to get more details,” he said. Enquiry revealed that the garage located in Wadala had indeed conducted some repair work on the bike a month or so ago. “One of the workers identified the bike and mentioned he had stuck the sticker on it. We asked him to tell us if he knew who had brought the bike. While he didn’t know the accused, he provided us with their sketches and we began our hunt again,” he said.

The police tracked down the bike address to Prabhadevi and identified the owner as 18-year-old Imran Khan and found Khan had lent the bike to his friend aged 17, who would ride it without proper documents. While Khan is still absconding, the police has arrested the minor and charged him under relevant sections.